All you've got to do is turn up and have a few facial tics and be a lunatic and throw someone around the room or blow their brains out and people think it's good acting.

I'm trying to make sense of lot of things with 'Tyrannosaur.' I'm trying to make sense of people who've left now. They're not here, they can't answer for themselves any more, they're gone. And I'm trying to make peace with those ghosts.

I would hate to be thrust into the middle of a big film and not deliver. There's young actors and they're put into these central roles and they're commanding armies - but they can't quite pull it off. I'd much rather do it in small steps and build it from there.

I don't want to be disrespectful to people who are incredible at their craft, but the truth is, if I didn't get paid for it, I wouldn't act. The best-paying jobs are usually the worst films. You're a very small cog in a big machine.

With directors, some have a kind of in-built ability to just know how to work with actors and get the best out of actors, and some don't have a clue about acting. I think it'd be a good idea if directors put themselves in front of the camera, or even went on a six-week drama course, just to know a little bit about what that feels like.

I could never sit down and say: I'm going to do an out-and-out comedy, just to prove to people I can. You've just got to do what you do. Just listen to your soul and do your art and do it for the right reasons, and then you can't fail.

There's no social realism in 'Tyrannosaur.' It's not about the social landscape or the political landscape or any of that. It's just about human beings. I never made 'Tyrannosaur' in reference to anybody - I just made it because I had to make my own films.