Growing up, there was only classical music on BBC Radio. We had to listen to the American Forces Network in Germany, which played pop songs, or the pirate radio boats off the coast.

Books were my window on the world. Growing up at the Elephant and Castle, which was very rough, my paradise was the library.

I'll always be there because I'm a skilled professional actor. Whether or not I've any talent is beside the point.

I'm every bourgeois nightmare - a Cockney with intelligence and a million dollars.

Victor Saville was bad news because he wanted money just to do one big picture.

The second thing we did was said, OK, we've now identified the risk, but what do you want to do with the money? Because it's not enough to have risk; you've got to have a meaningful use for the money we give you.

My big goal in life was always to figure out how I can make a lot of money so I can go off and make films irrespective of the opinion of the three or four critics who seem to rule the roost.

My parents were very permissive when it came to animals. As long as we earned the money to buy them and built whatever structure it was they were going to live in, we could have any kind of pet we wanted. They would have let us have a rhinoceros if we could have afforded it.