At this moment, when Ireland seems about to break into something new, we thought it was worth looking back at a time when people seemed to have found a way out of the sectarian division of the country.

I loved movies as a teenager and saw as much American cinema as I could, but I hated the English films of the early 60s and had absolutely no point of identification with them.

I don't know that I'm 'hangdog'. That suggests someone skulking around, unengaged. I'm not. I'm 'engaged', believe me. I have just got a slightly sad face.

I have never been to a brothel. I don't think I could go into one.

I've never been in a bad play. There might have been bad productions and I might have been bad in them, but I've never been in a play that wasn't interesting or worthwhile doing on some level.

I've been worked over by the English press because there's an assumption that my politics are identical with my wife's, and for that matter that my wife's politics are identical with her politics of 20 years ago.

I think great art is always ambiguous and can't be pinned down.