Very, 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. It's a great relief to feel that you're working with someone rather than for someone. You don't feel that you're being tested, as it were.

The clergy is in the same business as actors, just a different department.

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

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.

We're all far too afraid of being so arrogant to say "Either you can or you can't."

Often I don't read novels. The script is more important, that's the springboard to your imagination, really. Peripheral information can be interesting to read but you can't use it when it's not in the script.

I think, you have to forget about intellect, to a degree. Intuition is very important when you're working with a lens, I believe, for what the lens is doing, too.