I look at the story, I look at the idea and just try to think of it in terms of that whole body of myth and see where the characters fit in and what they ought to be doing-all those archetypes are there to play with.

There are always forces at work in a society, certainly in America, which are really forces of censorship -either religious bodies or zealots who are always putting pressure on things, whether it's books or art or film. And all art is fundamentally subversive, because it upsets people's perceptions, their notions about society. Therefore, art is dangerous, but good art is always making us reassess our thoughts and feelings about how we relate to other people. There are always people who fear that and want to suppress that.

There's always been this strand of filmmaking in Britain which is like socialist neo-realism. That's always been there. I've never been part of that, really; I've been much closer to fantasy.

When actors are being defensive and defending their position, that is when you get less than good acting.

What we need is someone to abolish the House Of Lords, get rid of the Royal Family.

I'm trying to suggest a kind of Middle Earth, in Tolkien terms. It's a contiguous world; it's like ours but different.

I love green. Green is the color of nature, trees. I'm a tree freak. I spend a lot of my time planting trees, nurturing them, and studying them. It's one of the colors I couldn't live without.