I've never done a [Berthold] Brecht. In the 1960s when the Berliner Ensemble came over [to England] with Helene Weigel [Brecht's second wife], I saw all the Berlin actors. It was an amazing time, very exciting early 1960s.

A very, very impressive director, Tomas Alfredson. It's only his second film [ 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy'], but he's a real find.

Society is constantly recalibrating, redefining what it considers to be moral and immoral.

Some directors involve waiting, and if you want to work with that particular director you're going to have to hang around.

When you're really working well with a director then you can be as outrageous as you like and so can he. And there's no worry about it.

I loved working with [ Lars Von Trier], but I've done two films before, so I was quite used to him.He's a man of incredible moods of course, but he's also a hugely perceptive man, and there's no getting away from that. And he's able to put that perception into something like film, so we're very lucky.

My springboard is always the script. Even if the script is taken from a novel, I often haven't read the novel...