If you've got a great crew it's intense, but its quite short. 'The Elephant Man' was longer than most, for an independent film. That was a 14 week film. But it was because of the intrinsic difficulties. We had to invent a different way of filming, because the makeup was so long. A working day for me with a full makeup on was nineteen hours. So obviously you couldn't do that twice running.

I turn up in Los Angeles every now and then, so I can get some big money films in order to finance my smaller money films.

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

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

There are certain people that when they ask you to do a film, you just say, "Where and when?"

If I'm in theatre, cinema doesn't even cross my mind. Similarly when I'm making a film, theatre doesn't cross my mind.

I wanted to work with those boys (producers Andy and Larry Wachowski) because they're so eccentric and peculiar. Larry, of course, is halfway towards being a woman now. It's a crazy world.