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.

Actors want to impress at the beginning, so you take advantage of that by suddenly saying, 'Right, you're here for two weeks.' What you're doing is creating a siege mentality.

I find it difficult enough being called "Mr. Boyle," which as I age I'm increasingly called.

I'm not a 'Star Wars' geek.

I haven't got anything against films that are about the minutia of relationships or customs, but I love extremes. I love taking a bunch of characters and it usually is a bunch of characters, and you throw something at them that's usually extreme, like a bag of money, or you send them out to explode a nuclear device on the surface of the sun. And those extremes are wonderful for drama.

I'm a big sports fan. Football. Cricket.

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.