They said: "Make it in this amount of time and go for it now..." Which is why I was suddenly ambushed and we all found ourselves doing it. I suspect this wasn't quite recognisable in its genre to give people the confidence just to throw money at it.

It's a very dangerous state. You are inclined to recklessness and kind of tune out the rest of your life and everything that's been important to you. It's actually not all that pleasurable. I don't know who the hell wants to get in a situation where you can't bear an hour without somebody's company.

I do think a good story in a novel is fair game and there's nothing wrong with adapting that. It sometimes gets a bit facile where they think: "Let's get the next best-seller and see if we can turn it into a film."

However good a communicator a director is, unless they've been actors, it's just not the same as the shorthand you get with someone who's been an actor.

The failure so far of the governments of so many of the worlds most powerful countries in the face of such egregious unfairness ... to make the slightest progress on the issue of fair trade is hard to explain.

Less racist now but it has been. I don't think it's been completely stamped out. There's a class element to it. And who's supposed to do what. You're very unlikely to get a gay grip.

I have a kind of neutrality, physically, which has helped me. I have a face that can be made to look a lot better - or a lot worse.