Anything which retains interest is optimistic. When the characters become disinterested, it's pessimistic. Does that make sense?

I think I'd rather do [acting] in the real place. It requires different things, working with green screen, but its an imaginative exercise anyway, the whole business of acting, so it just gives you a bit more to feed the imagination. Unless it's really silly, just two of you stuck in a space with nothing but green screen that's got to be pretty difficult.

We're all far too afraid of being so arrogant to say "Either you can or you can't."

A very, very impressive director, Tomas Alfredson. It's only his second film [ 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy'], but he's a real find.

It's a great relief to feel that you're working with someone rather than for someone. You don't feel that you're being tested, as it were.

Elephant Man [movie] was much more difficult physically. This had a couple of days. It was quite tricky. I had my leg strapped up behind me and I am a little older now. It was all marvelous, though. He [Bong Joon-ho] is one of the most fabulous directors in the world.

Lotte Lenya was all emotion. She wasn't anything but emotion. She was not an intellectual.