Port Talbot is a steel town, where everything is covered with gray iron ore dust. Even the beach is completely littered with dust, it's just black. The sun was setting, and it was quite beautiful. The contrast was extraordinary, I had this image of a guy sitting there on this dingy beach with a portable radio, tuning in these strange Latin escapist songs like 'Brazil.' The music transported him somehow and made his world less gray.

Whatever I do might be good, it might be bad, it might be all sorts of things, but it's not mediocre.

There was a perverse side of me, with things like Van Helsing coming out. I didn't want to go down that route.

Talent is less important in filmmaking than patience.

I don't think you ever learn just one thing. At some point you start unlearning things. I have been working hard to unlearn everything I know.

To me, the stories that have always intrigued me are the stories of people leaving my movies and being affected by them. They walk home 20 blocks the wrong way. Or they lock themselves in their office. Or they find themselves weeping when in the shower after the film. And those intrigue me, because I know I've touched something inside them.

John Cleese was with a group called Cambridge Circus, who had come to New York, and we became friends. Years later that produced a certain team effort.