I do what interests me when I'm invited and do it as well as I know how and try to get better. That's all.

I often say, with something like 'The Elephant Man,' had it been an American series for television, where you have to sign your life away for seven years...well, maybe I would never have made 'Sailcloth.'

I'm not accustomed to doing films without seeing the script. There are certain people that are auteurs, and you accept them regardless of whether you see a script or not. But Spielberg is not an auteur.

It's quite interesting, looking back at the first one [film about Harry Potter], nobody knew whether or not it was going to be successful as a film. The books were of course already very successful, but that's happened before, where the books were successful and the films weren't at all. But it turned out that they were.

I got used to [ Lars Von Trier] doing the narration for 'Dogville' and 'Manderley.' And I said to him I do these narrations for you but you never put me in a film! So he called my bluff and put me in 'Melancholia' and I was thrilled about that.

I never had any ambition to be a star, or whatever it is called, and I'm still embarrassed at the word.

If I hadn't been a part of [Harry Potter] I would have been deeply upset.