I'm always after putting people in extreme circumstances. I'm always after not knowing what I'm doing in those extreme circumstances.

I love watching the Bond movies obviously and I grew up reading the books as a kid. I've always loved them because of that.

Everybody expects you to be qualified to talk about your films, but in a way, you're the least qualified person to talk about them. When you're finished, you don't watch them at all.

I made this film 'The Beach,' which didn't take place in a city, and it didn't really suit me.

I tend to score with songs from Western pop music.

My kids are too old to remember this now but, when they were much younger, I swore to them if this miracle ever happened, I would receive it in the spirit of Tigger from Winnie the Pooh, and thats what that was.

We're trying to learn from [Olympic] Beijing, which could be very intimidating. We've learned to expect it's power, it majesty and that it completes a cycle of certain types of shows... I don't think any nation could do anything on that scale. We haven't got that money, and I don't think anybody would have the appetite for that kind of expenditure and that kind of control, so we're going to try and do something a bit more intimate and try and start again... start a new cycle for these kind of ceremonies.