My fathers a clergyman, and he was in the mission field for a certain amount of time in British Honduras, which is now Belize.

Very broadly speaking, you can put directors into two areas: One for whom you work, and the other with whom you work. And I prefer the latter, for obvious reasons.

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

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 put everything I can into the mulberry of my mind and hope that it is going to ferment and make a decent wine. How that process happens, I'm sorry to tell you I can't describe.

I certainly don't see myself as Caligula.

From John Huston to Fred Zinnemann and Richard Fleischer and all those great American directors.