And that is a hard route for a woman to come through. There's still a lot of roles that have to be conformed to. It's quite an old fashioned environment in a lot of ways.

'La Dolce Vita' made we want to go to Rome and, if not jump into the Trevi Fountain, at least watch someone else do it. Maybe that's why I married an Italian...!

I have almost no memory of them [St. Trinian's films]. I don't think I've seen them since I was quite young. I was a bit frightened of the girls. I fancied them. Even though I was young, I found them attractive and rather frightening. I've always been attracted to frightening girls! I'm married to one!

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 think the dictator director is based upon stories from the past. I don't think anyone would put up with it now. There are a lot of people on a film set with egos. So, to be completely authoritarian, you'd probably have to have a reputation like Kurosowa or somebody to get away with it.

I would rather five people knew my work and thought it was good work than five million knew me and were indifferent.

Certainly, from where I stand, I'm not a specialist in wildly different walks and voices. But I find as much variation and nuance as what satisfies me in what I do. So, I don't find this particularly different. He has his own peculiarities. You're probably talking about a cluster of Englishmen in suits but I've done quite a big cluster of guys not in suits as well, which I've occupied myself with. So, I don't find that this is the one that stands out.