Well, you cannot think of cinema now, and you cannot think of cinema in the UK and not place Chaplin in the most extraordinary elevated context, if there can be such a thing, in that he was a genius, he was unique.

I was on my own union council for twenty-odd years.

I passionately believe in heroes, but I think the world has changed its criteria in determining who it describes as a hero.

I am passionately opposed to capital punishment, and I have been all my life.

And that is how I employ my time in cinema, saying things about people who I think have touched us in terms of our value judgement and by example.

If you've ever seen the film In Which We Serve, but it was about a destroyer in the Mediterranean.

And there are certain things, and they are evident, obviously, without being boring about it, but I mean obviously, the two evident and easy ones being Gandhi and Cry Freedom, there are things which I do care about very much and which I would like to stand up and be counted.