I think you're bound to get a sense of any character that you play. It's not something you often do in comedy.

I'm not looking for anything other than an interesting role to play.

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

It certainly helps, I think, with some actors to understand the process of acting. You see what extraordinary pressure they're under, there's a huge circus dedicated to a particular moment and they're got to deliver and it can help that you, even if empathetically alone, understand what they're doing.

The Scarlet Pimpernel is the most over-rated human being since Judas Iscariot won the A.D.31 'Best Disciple' competition.

I'm as poor as a church mouse, that's just had an enormous tax bill on the very day his wife ran off with another mouse, taking all the cheese.

I want to express myself in a different way. I have a performing inclination.