I love going for a swim. Growing up in England, anywhere with a pool seems like the height of glamour to me.

We are not telling Tudor history; we are creating ' Wolf Hall ' from novels, which are already a rereading of Tudor history.

For me the rehearsal period is the part I most enjoy. It's the creating of the story.

I've always had a 'Work hard, play hard' attitude to life - I still do - but sometimes you get involved in something that needs a calm, methodical approach.

You know what it's like to feel anxious - it's horrible feeling anxious. It's stressful having that feeling, having butterflies in your stomach, even for a day, and you don't sleep at night.

I think people like to be scared. I think people like tension and suspense in a movie.

You can't do something that is morally vacuous or dysfunctional and then write it off saying, 'It wasn't my film, I was just doing a job in it.'

People need revelation, and then they need resolution.

My heroes were all in the theatre.

I think you can't be really posh and be an interesting actor. I'm a bit of a posh rough.

Temperamentally I'm not a natural producer, because I don't have the patience.

A simple change in mindset in a moment can change a whole set in a moment.

On a sunny Tuesday - for it seems so many awful things happen on a Tuesday - six astronauts and one schoolteacher attempted to pierce the sky. Instead they touched the stars.

One of the most devastating experiences in human life is disillusionment.

I love smart and curious people. I value intelligence in my friends and relationships.

There's a tangle between weakness and vulnerability.

It is the English, not their Government; for if they were not blind cowards, they would lynch Chamberlain and Halifax and all the other smarmy traitors.

It's sheer torture. I have to be up with the chickens every day and go to work on my body. I hate it, but I do it.

After directing movies, I respect any director in this world, because making a movie as a director is tons and tons of work.

The hand that rules the press, the radio, the screen and the far-spread magazine, rules the country.

I don't believe in original melodies. There are only so many computations of eight notes.