I've sort of escaped my background, as people often do, through art and culture.

Some of us are interested in directors, but really the vast majority of us are interested in actors. You experience the films through the actors, so they're all locked into your imagination in some kind of layer of fantasy or hatred or wherever they settle into your imagination.

The individual will to survive is often seen as just that, an individual thing. In fact, it's sort of a gene we all carry and like a network of computers it all contributes in some way to when it's individually needed.

Most films that I do, whether successful or not, just fade away. They have their moment in the sun, then they are gone. 'Trainspotting' did not, and especially with journalists. So whenever I launched a new film, I'd end up talking about 'Trainspotting.'

I find that people find a way out of misery through humor and it's humor that's often unacceptable to people who are not in quite such a state of misery.

I have a philosophy, a belief, which I can see in many, many other directors that your early work is your best work, because you don't know what you're doing.

If I am acting out in any particular way that is harmful to myself - without a shadow of doubt, there is a feeling suppressed under wanting that second candy bar. Often, it is that little voice I haven't paid attention to. It's generally not the adult voice. If I take a moment to address that and figure out what that is, the desire for the candy bar seems to dissipate.