Some of my most special shooting experiences have been at weekends.

Films about the English monarchy, they tend to have a lavishness, sumptuous imagery, it's all very posh and rich.

The more uncompromisingly specific you are the more you end up touching the bigger universal truths.

American movies are often very good at mining those great underlying myths that make films robustly travel across class, age, gender, culture.

Well, I'm half Australian, half English and I live in London. That is the only reason I came upon this story. My Australian mother, Meredith Hooper, was invited in late 2007 by some Australian friends to make up a token Australian audience in a tiny fringe theater play reading of an unproduced, unrehearsed play called 'The King's Speech.

Thank you to my wonderful actors, the triangle of man-love which is Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush and me.

A lot of dramas get a bad name commercially because they are unremittingly bleak.