Mike Leigh

Given the choice of Hollywood or poking steel pins in my eyes, I'd prefer steel pins.

But films should be voyeuristic. What else is a film if you're not snooping into somebody else's lives?

My work requires acting at its most committed - it demands actors of enormous resilience, but also intelligence and wit. It doesn't work for narcissistic or selfish actors.

You have to have really wide reading habits and pay attention to the news and just everything that's going on in the world: you need to. If you get this right, then the writing is a piece of cake.

People say, 'Where do you live?' and I say that theoretically, I live in London, but basically that's just where I go to change my suitcase. Otherwise, I'm always flying somewhere.

I am happy to the spokeswoman for this French youth that tomorrow will be spearhead new hope in the shape of the National Front.