Usually, when special effects get in the way, it's because the story isn't strong enough. If you don't start with a strong screenplay, it's easy to fall back on special effects, thinking it's going to carry you. But it never works. It's just tiresome.

When you're doing a big movie, you're gone for 10 months to a year.

I spend a lot of my time just developing material; or the company does. That material can come from a book, can come from a newspaper, can come from a discussion and sometimes it can come from a script that got passed over and is floating around.

I also love Australian movies. I love Muriel's Wedding - I've seen in six times. Baz Luhrmann's best movie is strictly ballroom... without question.

Everyone sniggered because I was going to do a sandal and toga movie. But I knew exactly how to do it and I know how to make Robin Hood.

Some people like to do everything always the same thing. That's another way: To do the same thing.

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.