The great joke is that a realist is an optimistic pessimist. That's very witty. Whether it's truthful or not, that I don't know.

Often I don't read novels. The script is more important, that's the springboard to your imagination, really. Peripheral information can be interesting to read but you can't use it when it's not in the script.

Life is full of ironies and paradoxes.

I left drama school and went straight into a 10-week film for which I was paid £75 I might say, which for 1962 was one heck of a lot of money.

I'd say the film to avoid is a director's second film, particularly if his first film was a big success. The second film is where you've really needed to have learned something.

The clergy is in the same business as actors, just a different department.

I've done lots of films with first directors, so it's not unusual for me.