I would love to do something for TV... I wanna do 'Kavalier & Clay' on HBO as an eight-parter. It'll be so much better as a series, honestly.

England is strictly class-based. What's surprising is how many films are still made with a load of people in silly frocks running around gardens and talking in middle-class accents.

I've never been to Hollywood. I can count the number of times I've been to Los Angeles on my hands. I've never made a movie there and I've never been there for working reasons. The only reason to go there is for silly awards shows.

You go through a process of refinement and getting rid of the excesses of your early youth in terms of your excitement about what theatre can do.

Well, there are three different processes of making a film, of course. They're sort of re-written three times. You write it to start with, and then you shoot it and you re-write it while shooting and you sort of re-write it as you edit.

I am, in fact, Superman. Every morning I wake up and go into a telephone booth and change my costume, and then go to work.

One of the great joys of my job is that you spend a huge amount of time investigating different areas of literature.