I find it difficult to say, like "which child do you prefer the most", and its a sort of surface choice. I've never known how to quite answer that one adequately.

I remember once when I told Lindsay Anderson at a party that acting was just a sophisticated way of playing cowboys and Indians he almost had a fit.

I think you can get better in mathematics on a school level, but when you're talking about being a mathematician, I think that's definitely a gift of genes or whatever.

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.

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

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.

The only concession you can make is to what you believe is right.