In all honesty a gangster picture was the easiest kind of film for me to get made.

My gratitude to Ridley [Scott] isn't anything new. I named one of my kids after him. But he's a very important person to me.

I think the only real referent for anybody writing drama is probably Hamlet. You have the most extreme tragic drama, this sort of blood-boltered thing, but it's also very funny, which is simply a matter of the playwright being alive and observant and entertaining, and understanding not only the world but what will play.

I'm usually the first guy to propose a change because I'm continuing my process. We're in a context, in this business, a context in which most screenplays work on a very modest level of achievement, in that a lot of them aren't really written by what you would call writers.

Martin [Campbell] is very energetic and precise. He'll on the set like four hours early with a flashlight and I thought, well, I'll certainly try to be very neat about my script like Martin, which I wasn't, but I'm not going to do that bit with the 4AM and the flashlight. I'd love to be able to say I was nervous, but I wasn't. The only time I ever had anxiety it turned out to be asthma.

When I was young I was only thinking of writing, and whatever was going on was unreal and comparatively unimportant.

Wisdom is not having illusions, especially anything in your own mind that elevates you above others.