I've long since stopped worrying about how I'm portrayed in the press because ultimately it's not that important. Everyone who knows me knows I do what I do with the greatest integrity.

The way an actor is trained doesn't ultimately have much bearing on my work. I'm interested in the actor as artist.

The main problem is that the Hollywood system has already made the film before the director shoots a single frame.

If I'm ever working on a set and anyone talks about a master shot, I say there is no master shot. Before I even went to film school, I learned about movies by being in a British feature film, where everything was shot master shot, mid-shot, close-up. But I reject the idea of a master shot. You don't shoot everything mechanically; you find imaginative ways that serve the action.

It creeps up on you and becomes an obsession. It comes out of watching a million movies.

I'm old enough to have friends and contemporaries who have long since retired, and that's their prerogative - enough is enough; it doesn't mean a thing to me. But I haven't got any money, so, you know, I just keep on working.

But films should be voyeuristic. What else is a film if you’re not snooping into somebody else’s lives?