I'm developing the stuff all the time. There's a film in my head. I'm imagining a film.

My work requires acting at its most committed - it demands actors of enormous resilience, but also intelligence and wit. It doesn't work for narcissistic or selfish actors.

When I was young I used to sit in the cinema thinking wouldn't it be great if you could have a film in which the characters were like real people instead of being like actors.

One of the reasons the whole Hollywood way of making films wouldn't work for me is because the way I operate would be anathema to anyone who wants to hold a job down in Beverly Hills.

I've walked out of films. But for every film I've ever walked out of, I've probably walked out of 500 plays.

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

The notion that acting is simply about intuitively responding to situations the way you feel couldn't be farther away from how I ask actors to work.