It's a great relief to feel that you're working with someone rather than for someone. You don't feel that you're being tested, as it were.

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

By the time I came to do the final ones [Harry Potter's film], I was working on something that was massively successful. There was a huge difference in indulgence and all sorts of stuff. A very big difference in peoples' attitudes. They were very pleased with themselves. In human terms, it was quite interesting to see the difference.

I'm really the addition of other peoples' imagination, quite honestly. It's what they see me as, and I'm very happy to comply. I find things are more varied that way.

Film has changed vastly in the time that I've been an actor, and it's, I think, very much for the better. I think there are just magnificent films now, and they're blossoming in the way that the novel did years ago.

Once you've started to dig a hole, you can't get out of it.

It's amazing how quickly human beings adapt, isn't it? It was such a great crew, and David [Lynch] was wonderful to work with [on 'The Elephant Man']. It was a very thrilling time, actually.