Scaring someone's the hardest thing to do, and that's why most of scary movies are not scary. They're sick, but not scary. There's a lot of sickness out there, of people who then sit there and watch it, which I think is absolutely dismaying.

You step forward and make it real for a start. You choose a sensible moment in history. Funnily enough, England was bankrupt and the moment is the death of Richard The Lionheart... Richard takes an arrow in the neck collecting a small debt from a small castle on his way home from the Crusades because he's penniless.

MPC, Moving Picture Company, they're really excellent, they did the majority of the effects.

I was a very earnest, hard working boy at school, but my parents were distressed because I was always bottom of the class. But I wasn't dilatory, I worked like crazy.

I'm very competitive. I just go with what engages or fascinates me in my work and that's it. I have no definition; I just love to do it.

I think moviemakers are dramatists.

In my view, the only way to see a film remains the way the filmmaker intended: inside a large movie theater with great sound and pristine picture.