I think the war movie genre is a very important genre in film. Film gives you a visceral experience of something that you would never otherwise experience. To give the audience a real feeling of what maybe a certain kind of warfare would be like I thought was great.

I always love working with young actors, because there's always something to learn. It's always exciting to see the next generation and how they approach things and what's great about them and what's not so great about them.

Flesh sells. People don't want to see pictures of churches. They want to see naked bodies.

Sometimes nudity is sexy. Sometimes it's not. Sometimes being clothed is more sexy than being nude. I think people tend to get the two mixed up.

A war film can be propaganda and they're very valuable as propaganda, as we realized in Britain in the Second World War. Film as propaganda is a very valuable tool. It can also demonize, which is the dangerous side of a war film as propaganda. But there are war films that are not propaganda. It's just saying 'This is what it's like.' For 99 percent of us we don't know what it's like. We have no idea. So to reveal that to the audience is powerful.

The poor Oscars - they always get slammed in the press.

I'd describe myself as a Christian who doesn't believe in God.