If you're playing someone who's got marital problems, you have to play someone who's trying not to have marital problems. So, you've got to get into the problem first.

Doing a job, or even watching a film, can make a difference to your life, but I don't think it ever has an explosive impact where your life will never be the same again. It kind of seeps into your life, and perhaps realise you're a little more vigilant about certain things than you might have been.

Some people come up to be directors by coming through the camera department and there's not a lot of women in the camera department. The ones that are have to kind of prove they're one of the boys, I think. I don't want to get into trouble with generalisations but I think it's a fair observation.

Maybe it's shallow of me to have a wife that's so beautiful, but it makes things easier. To me she's the most beautiful woman in the world.

Because I am an Englishman I spent most of my life in a state of embarrassment.

When I'm really into a novel, I'm seeing the world differently during that time— not just for the hour or so in the day when I get to read. I'm actually walking around in a haze, spellbound by the book and looking at everything through a different prism.

I think everyone is throwing happy stuff at you, and that's when you come over all humbug. It's happy stuff in your face, happy stuff is being sold to you.