I turn up in Los Angeles every now and then, so I can get some big money films in order to finance my smaller money films.

If I'm in theatre, cinema doesn't even cross my mind. Similarly when I'm making a film, theatre doesn't cross my mind.

With [Fred] Zinnemann I did A Man For All Seasons. He was my screen godfather. I'm happy to say he was.

I stopped asking a long time ago, "why would you want me to play that?" I'm an actor. That's what I do.

Developing characters is a collective process, on one hand; it's an individual process on the other. The truth is rarely pure and never simple, as dear Oscar Wilde would say. A great of it, of course, is, you collect as much information as you can and then you put it into the mulberry of your mind and hope that you come up with a decent wine. Sometimes you do; sometimes you don't.

I've spent a great deal of my life doing independent film, and that is partly because the subject matter interests me and partly because that is the basis of the film industry. That's where the film-makers come from, it's where they start and sometimes its where they should have stayed.

Anything which retains interest is optimistic. When the characters become disinterested, it's pessimistic. Does that make sense?