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.

When I look in the mirror, I don't see my Dad, I see my grandmother. For a while it was my mother looking back at me. If only it was my Dad.

I don't know if this qualifies as gentle reassurance, but right now this is all that stands between me and a Harley-Davidson.

It was mainly to do with Helen Hunt, to be honest. That's what drew my attention to it. I was interested in the fact that she was going to be directing. I'd never met her but she projects a degree of intelligence and it was convincing t me that she'd be able to handle this sort of material very well.

Sometimes to think about why some institutions are stable, it's interesting to go one generation back and look at the author of that stability.

Bridget Jones is part of literary lore now and actually to be a part of it is enormously flattering.

Firth - all dodgy 'tache and frantic eyebrows - has got the sexual allure of a man who runs a swingers' club in Surbiton.