I really like telling stories. When I was a kid, I wanted to write songs. In quite a fundamental, gratifying, childish way, I enjoy the doing of telling a story.

I feel like the world we live in seems to be full of an increasingly grey area, but the culture that we live in seems to be getting really entrenched in black and white positions, and I think it's urgent to talk about that because it's going to kill us all.

An actor has so much less space and responsibility. Sometimes you come on, and there are already tape marks for where you are supposed to stand, and the dialogue is already decided on. If you want to make a change and contribute something, it has to be approved by a number of people.

I find that our response to homelessness really puzzlingly. It's a peculiar response that people have.

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.

I was always waiting for the secret to be handed down to me. Ron Howard asked me what I was waiting for and I went, "Ron, I'm waiting to know the secret. I keep feeling there's some sort of secret that's going to passed on from a director." He went, "Oh no. There is none. You've just got to on and do it and make mistakes and figure it out."

The world is split into two kinds of people, those who would go out for a drink with John Lennon, and those who`'d choose Paul McCartney... After The Beatles came back from India, Lennon wrote "Happiness Is a Warm Gun" and McCartney wrote "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da." End of argument.