I'm a passionate trade unionist.

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.

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.

What I am sad about is that there is now, in America, no equivalent to the art circuit.

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

I came from a family who believed in, in quotes, the Rights of Man, who believed that in order to justify the sort of luxurious life that the majority of us have, related to the whole world, that you had to do something.

I can't write, I can't paint, I don't compose.