Somehow I know there was something so right about my doing Frankenstein and taking so long over it that I've probably been laying some ghost inside myself. It was a very necessary job for me to do, but it'll take some time to recover from it.

It's very strange that the people you love are often the people you're most cruel to.

I think the best actors are the most generous, the kindest, the greatest people and at their worst they are vain, greedy and insecure.

I looked at the 1950 animated film [Cinderella], I read a couple of editions of the fairy tale that I have in my house and all of it seemed to say that there was room for a version that delivered, in this story, which seems to invite a feeling in people and I think that is some version of a classical world.

Music and language are a vital element. We, as actors and directors, offer it to people who want to experience it. Sometimes the actual meaning is less important than the words themselves.

After Frankenstein, I feel as if I want to make a film about somebody having a nice cup of tea.

I come from the theatre, my bones are in the theatre; it’s as natural as breathing to want to be in the theatre