You're not turning the picture over to a system or a process, you are the process, and the most important thing is to have things exactly as you want them.

If you decide to do Hamlet in a funny hat staged in a ruined factory, it doesn't make you Shakespeare.

I never work until I have a deadline. You have to fit so much in a given day that you just don't get serious until you know when the deadline is.

When I'm shooting, as much as writing, I see edited footage in my mind, so I work that way, and it's economical.

When I was very young, you would get the TV listings from The Globe and The Herald, and you would basically go through them, circle things, and map out your viewing week.

When they see you get what you want and move on, quickly, you've done a contract with the crew from that point. In Britain if the sparks call you Guv on day two, you never need an award of any other kind.

I had a guy at the Groucho bar clawing at my arm nearly in tears saying that until he saw The Departed he thought Americans were the ones on TV. I didn't know you had accents. I didn't know you had a class system. I didn't know you were like us. To which the answer is, probably only where I grew up, but while we're at it don't watch television and think it's the United States of America.