To be honest the work that a producer does is work that I've done for most of my working life. It's work that I started to do, for example, when I worked with Sally Potter on Orlando. We developed it together over five years.

If we don't accept loneliness, then capitalism wins hands down. Because capitalism is all about trying to convince people that you can distract yourself, that you can make it better. And it ain't true.

What very often happens when people make films about rich people, the camera is quite mesmerised by the opulence and quite theatrical in fact.

I'm from the same planet as David Bowie.

If I'd been asked to play an Asian man [in Doctor Strange] I would've shown them Benedict Wong.

There are many graphic artists who have interpreted The Ancient One as a Tibetan Buddhist Lama, we're kind of shifting that a bit. We're trying not to be fixed, we're trying not to be fixed to any one thing, any one gender, any one spiritual discipline, and any one race even; we're just trying to wing it beyond that. So it's a new gesture really, just another interpretation.

George [Clooney] and I do have the aim one day to be in a film where we say one nice thing to each other. Hopefully one day.