You spend so much of your life basing yourself on what you think other people think of you. Then you realise that maybe one of the purposes of life is not to care.

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

Somehow I think it was declared very early on that I was the - if not the black sheep of the family, not a very good student.

We're not allowed in the cutting room - and that's extraordinary. So, when a director is asking for certain nuances and colours and we feel that they're phoney, but we do it because the director asks for it, that's the one that they pick in the cutting room. And I contend that when you see a movie with bad acting, don't blame the actor... blame those guys in the cutting room because they like that take.

Many actors want to play Hamlet and Macbeth. Ever since I became an actor, from the very beginning I just wanted to play a Shetland pony. I cannot explain why

So, most of it was done over the phone. But one of the first things I did as a director, because it's one of the first things you should do, even though most don't, is to ask good actors who they think is right for the part. They know better than anybody. But without missing a beat Maggie said Pauline Collins. I didn't know Pauline because I hadn't seen Shirley Valentine, but then I saw this thing that she did with Woody Allen [You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger], in which she was wonderful as a psychic, and I said to her on the phone: "The dialogue seemed improvised."

But I would reinvent myself if I could. As a sexy leading man! We all would like that, but I don't know how to.