I made my first film at 8 years of age. It was an 8mm on Oliver Cromwell, the only real revolutionary we've had in England.

I couldn't get into the movies when I was 17. I wanted to work my way up through the whole system, but they wouldn't let me in. So I struggled and struggled to get into the mainline film industry.

Something is taken away from a project if you talk about it too much before it's done. Something goes. There are two years from the time of your first conception, maybe longer. You doubt... you rethink... and to hold onto that original vision is the most difficult thing of all, I find. The more you talk about it, the more other people come and give their ideas, the more it gets dissipated, the more you, maybe, doubt and rethink. There's a danger of ruining your film.

[speaking in 1987] "There's nothing original in British cinema today. It's the bastardization of any other cinema you like to name. Instead of speaking English, it speaks American."