That's what we're all looking for, the place where the work leads us.

Life stinks, but that doesn't mean you don't enjoy it.

Blame is for God and small children.

I think the most insulting thing you can do to a director is to challenge when he or she is satisfied with your interpretation.

Tom [Courtenay] and Albert Finney met Ron Harwood on the dresser, so that's how it started. It's a wonderful documentary. It's called Tosca's Kiss and Mr Hardwood told me about it when I asked him what the genesis was. It was made in 1983 and Verdi, who was rich and successful, toward the end of his life decided to build a mansion for himself in Milan, where he lived, and he stipulated that when he died opera singers and musicians - because he knew so many who were no longer playing at the Scala and some were poor - could live there.

If you can get out there and say I'm going to...I'm willing to fail at what I feel is right, that's it.

I stopped working a few years ago because I just lost a spark that I'd had before. I thought I'd just try writing, and maybe start directing, but I did it very quietly.