[Georges] Simenon could be very brave like that. You never quite know what you're going to get or how the story's going to be told.

I'm more critical of the films I make than anyone else.

The arts community still has a long lasting cynicism of the importance, or the artistic value, of comedy. Comedy is just farting about for money.

Nope, I don't enjoy work generally. Not because I'm lazy; it's just all so stressful and worrying.

We still have a tradition certainly in English television; it's faded a bit in the last five years, but we still have a tradition where the important thing is the quality and the challenging nature of the programming.

It's the demand in many ways of modern television drama - it's very low key and naturalistic, and, generally speaking, the characters that I've played have not been low key and naturalistic.

My personal problem is that I take the business of film-making so seriously that I find it very difficult to relax.