If you don't want women to do whatever they need to do then you must provide them with food, you must provide them with shelter and their basic human rights.

I'm an atheist. I suppose you can call me a sort of libertarian anarchist. I regard religion with fear and suspicion. It's not enough to say that I don't believe in God. I actually regard the system as distressing: I am offended by some of the things said in the Bible and the Qur'an and I refute them.

I think we're creating a situation that's incredibly dangerous. There's a lot of chat at the moment about the war on terror and whilst there are many causes for acts of terrorism, what kind of society are you creating if you allow civil society in Africa to die and create millions upon millions of orphans? Where are they going to go? What kind of cults, what kind of militias, what's going to happen? The accession of violence in those countries, the possibility of that, to me is very terrifying.

Girlfriends are vital ... Maggie [Gyllenhaal] and I will always see each other when Maggie's in London or I'm here. We'll always make time to sit and catch up properly.

My mother has never approved of high heels. As a result, I have never been able to walk in high heels - and they were all I ever wanted. So of course, my daughter has two pairs.

Is love a fancy or a feeling.... or a Ferrars?

I have a nervous breakdown in the film and in one scene I get to stand at the top of the stairs waving an empty sherry bottle which is, of course, a typical scene from my daily life, so isn't much of a stretch.