I made 'Saving Private Ryan' for my father. He's the one who filled my head with war stories when I was growing up.

I missed my dad a lot growing up, even though we were together as a family. My dad was really a workaholic. And he was always working.

Before statehood was achieved, Syria and Egypt had their tanks and military equipment lined up to invade Tel Aviv and destroy it; but the Israelis scrambled together an air force, some of it from old Second World War Messerschmidts, and the invasion was halted.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Jihadism have nothing to do with each other.

When McGwire started the home run mania, attendance came back. The owners understood that the sudden spike in homers wasn't accidental. All baseball knew it. But baseball is run on money, and home runs meant money. Baseball turned a blind eye.

I am a regular, if not exactly enthusiastic, patron of my local bookshop. I try to buy at least some books there because I cling to the belief that it's important to maintain those businesses which put a human face on the exchange of money for goods and services.

The first book I bought with my own money as a teenager was Martin Amis's 'Money.' You know that thing when you read a book and you think, 'I'm going to have to read every word ever written by this man.'

Certain stories need the resources of a studio. If you're telling a story about a giant robot war in outer space, you're going to need the money and the resources most of the time to do it justice.