Time and time again I was told that I would never make the film on time and never make it on budget. That kind of criticism tends to turn me into a great big motor of efficiency.
When I meet a couple, I’m always interested to know if they have been together for a long time, or how loyal they are, because I know that will impact on how much I’m prepared to trust them.
If you’re doing well, you’re a target, nobody’s interested in you except how you can be of use to them.
It’s well known that actors are lousy writers.
When an actor asks you to read his script, your heart sinks. The number of scripts I’ve been given by actors that are so unbelievably terrible!
You finish a movie and you think, there, you’ve done it, really well, or best you can. But if you watch it, you see it was just bollocks.
I loved being asked 2,000 questions a day, storyboarding every move, knowing as though by instinct exactly where the camera had to be, because it was my story.
Unless you are an enormous name, you never stop auditioning.
I would still like to go to the moon before I die.
I would love to play your common, everyday guy, but I never get cast as that.
Anthony Hopkins says you just keep acting. Do it all the time and eventually it will happen. He got his break, after all, by taking a role nobody else wanted. A cannibal!
Ensure that your script is watertight. If it’s not on the page, it will never magically appear on the screen.
I am drawn to writing and directing as it is most like the feeling I had when I was a teenager with my puppet theatre. You are more in control of everything and involved in every aspect of production, so more challenged and fulfilled.
My father died prematurely at the age of 52 when I was 24, and it is a recurring regret that he never lived to see me succeed beyond university and drama.
Actors always think that others are getting more work than them. In my case, they usually are.
I am a very judgmental person. Of myself and other people. I recognise it’s a great fault, but I have no power over that.
Proving yourself in a field where the casualty rate is so notoriously high is an ongoing challenge.
I like fixing things.
It always depresses me when people moan about how commercial Christmas is. I love everything about it. The tradition of having this great big feast, slap bang in the middle of winter, is an essential thing to look forward to at the end of the year.
I watch TV all the time. Everything.