I was brought up Catholic. I'm lapsed. From the age of three I was with the nuns. Now I'm an atheist. I think religion does a lot for us but I can't quite believe it, alas... It's just a personal choice. I love the idea of heaven though. Who doesn't? It's lovely.

I still read the British papers, but I’ve never been a Royalist, ever. It’s funny, there always seems to be much more of a fascination with the Royal Family over here then there does in England.

In the old days when I first was coming up, you would turn up on set in the morning with your coffee, script, and hangover and you would figure out what you were going to do with the day and how you were going to play the scenes. You would rehearse and then invite the crew in to watch the actors go through the scenes. The actors would go away to makeup and costume and the director and the DP would work out how they were going to cover what the actors had just done.

I feel safe in saying this, and that is that Peter Weir is without a doubt one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. I'd open a door in a movie for him if he asked me to.

An agent friend of mine who will remain nameless said you can't make a romance about homeless people; nobody wants to see them kiss. And I thought, what a repulsive, repugnant, extraordinary thing to say. I had to think about the fact that the world is probably full of other people who feel like that. The very idea that we spend time trying to humanize humans is extraordinary to me.

In America, they shoot budgets and schedules, and they don't shoot films any more. There's more opportunity in Europe to make films that at least have a purity of intent.

Logic doesn't really provide for loyalty. If your logic changes suddenly and things not make sense, you can alter your allegiance, but love stops you from being able to do that.