Films don't take as long as people think. 'Harry Potter,' people always used to say, 'Well, my God, do you ever get any time to yourself?' I think I did, in 'Harry Potter,' over a 12 year period I did five days. So it's not exactly exhausting.

I'm very director oriented.

I think it's interesting to see how things come into and go out of fashion.

People say you never retire in this [film] business and I say, well, not until they retire you.

The British tradition, basically, is to go to the character. And the Hollywood tradition, shall we say, is basically to take the character to the performer.

I'm not interested in awards. I never have been. I don't think they are important. Don't get me wrong, if somebody gives me a prize, I thank them as gratefully as I know how, because it's very nice to be given a prize. But I don't think that awards ought to be sought. It encourages our business to be competitive in absolutely the wrong way. We're not sportsmen; we're not trying to come in first.

When you're really working well with a director then you can be as outrageous as you like and so can he. And there's no worry about it.