I envy people who can just look at a sunset. I wonder how you can shoot it. There is nothing more grotesque to me than a vacation.

We're all a little nit autistic.

Well, 45-odd years of doing it, so we all pile up the things we like about directors and the things we don't like about directors. And sometimes they're very similar.

I came in on this movie after there had been a director and I came in after Tom Courtenay had talked to Ron Harwood about making a movie. So, you know Tom and Albert Finney had been friends since the beginning of their career as they became stars around the same time - Tom always reminds me that Albert was first with Saturday Night and Sunday Morning and then Tom with The Long Distance Runner.

I'd like to thank my parents for not practicing birth control.

I believe - though I may be wrong, because I'm no expert - that this war is about what most wars are about: hegemony, money, power and oil.

For me as an American, the most painful aspect of this is that I believe that administration has taken the events of 9/11 and has manipulated the grief of the country and I think that's reprehensible.