I always think that if you deal with extremely emotional, even melodramatic, subject matter, as I constantly do, the best way to handle those situations is at a sufficient remove. It's like a doctor and a nurse and a casualty situation. You can't help the patient and you can't help yourself by emoting. And I don't think cinema is intended for therapy, so I object also to that huge, massive manipulation which is perpetrated on the public.

There is visual illiteracy with text-oriented films like bloody 'Harry Potter' and 'Lord of the Rings.'.

I want to regard my public as infinitely intelligent, as understanding notions of the suspension of disbelief and as realising all the time that this is not a slice of life, this is openly a film.

My second Christian name is John. Good solid bourgeois Christian name, like my first name, Peter, a rock. Minerals. Build on rock, rocks, uranium. Peter and John were two of the twelve apostles - arguable the two most significant. Were my parents hedging their bets?

Cinema is not a playground for Sharon Stone.

I do feel for me that cinema has somehow ceased to be a spectator sport. I get tremendous excitement out of making it rather than watching it.

I obviously irritate people. I obviously antagonise them.