It's hard to get yourself into a position where someone will trust you to direct a film anyway, whatever sex you are. Certainly in England, the film set is a very male preserve. There's a lot of very rough looking men pushing equipment around that don't want the gaffer to be a girl.

My primary instinct as an actor is not the big transformation. It's thrilling if a performer can do that well, but that's not me. Often with actors, it's a case of witnessing a big party piece but wondering afterwards, where's the substance?

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.

It didn't have to be a newfound respect for the craft, I knew that it's notoriously difficult and frightens a lot of people off. I don't think anyone knows quite who to attribute it to, but the dying actor who says: "dying is easy, comedy is hard." I hear it.

It's hard to get yourself into a position where someone will trust you to direct a film anyway, whatever sex you are. Certainly in England, the film set is a very male preserve. There's a lot of very rough looking men pushing equipment around that don't want the gaffer to be a girl.

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.

Whenever you take on playing a villain, he has to cease to be a villain to you. If you judge this man by his time, he's doing very little wrong.