I have lots of favourite memories but I can't say that I have a favourite film.

In the States it's more and more difficult to get an independent film off the ground, and you certainly wont get the opportunity to play something like that in a studio movie.

I've got plenty of train memories. I was sent to school when I was eight years old in 1948 in Kent. So I had to go through London in 1948, just after the war. Many ,many strange experiences.

I've done lots of films with first directors, so it's not unusual for me.

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'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.

I'd say the film to avoid is a director's second film, particularly if his first film was a big success. The second film is where you've really needed to have learned something.