If you put on an Oscar Wilde [play], it will interest those who are interested in Oscar Wilde. But it won't interest anybody else, because they won't get that wit.

I think, you have to forget about intellect, to a degree. Intuition is very important when you're working with a lens, I believe, for what the lens is doing, too.

I think an actor is very like a sportsman. You have periods where you're in terrific form. Everything you touch seems to work, and come right. And other times, when you're working really hard, it's okay, but it isn't scintillating.

I first decided that I wanted to act when I was 9. And I was at a very bizarre prep school at the time, to say high Anglo-Catholic would be a real English understatement.

I mark a script like an exam, and I try not to do anything under 50 per cent. Similarly with the part. And also film is a peculiar thing, parts don't necessarily read in script form anything like as well as they can do when it comes to materialising.

I'm besotted by [Kirsten Dunst] now. I think she's just wonderful. I can't think for a second that however much she'd worked in America, she would never have had the chance to play [a role in Lars Von Trier's 'Melancholia' ] like that. You have to get outside of the States to do something like that.

If it's a low-brow bawdy comedy, it's got to stand the chance of succeeding as such. If it's an intellectual piece, a drama, and so forth. And of course, once you've determined the level of the piece, do it the best you know how. And then don't make concessions. To audiences, or to pursestrings, or whatever.