There's a paraphrase about Orson Welles saying: "Great films are made by great directors and the rest are made by everyone else." I've been very lucky... before I start insulting the profession of directing, but I think a good director is everything and a bad director really is nothing at all.

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

The Hollywood Foreign Press have just given me a time out from my 20-year midlife crisis. My heartfelt thanks to them.

I like playing strange characters. Some people might say it has something to do with a hidden part of myself, but I think it's a lot simpler than that: normal people are just not very interesting.

In filming you're waiting. You're waiting for lights. You're waiting for people set things up. And when you're not waiting, you're repeating. And neither is conducive to spontaneity, you know. Comedy makes you very, very neurotic because you think, I - but did I nail it?

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

It's entirely to do with personality, I think. There are good directors who talk a lot, bad directors who talk a lot, and good directors who don't say much and vice-versa. It just depends on whether people respond to that personality and whether people have a willingness to do something for them.