The Hollywood image of the movie business is all about ambition and high achievers like James Cameron. But the British film industry is much more about men who wear cravats and work with model trains and hope another series of 'Thomas the Tank Engine' will be commissioned.
It's weathered many a storm, but the British film industry is, thankfully, still afloat.
I suppose I just like being arty. That's all. Arty.
Crime is interesting. It's huge and fascinating, and it's what my business, TV and film, is largely based on. But the realities are tragic, and in crime drama you rarely see the pain of bereavement or any consequences. It's reduced to a chess game.
I think the periods of being unsuccessful have made me a better actor.
A girl once came to my beery flat in Kensal Green, opened the blinds and cooked me breakfast. I married her.
I destroyed all my geek stuff because I didn't want to be a geek, and I regret it to this day. Consumed in the geek bonfire of the vanities was a collection of autographs and letters from Peter Cushing, Spike Milligan and Frankie Howerd, the first Doctor Whos, actual astronauts, and many more.
I hate restaurants that play music. You come out for a quiet meal, and you're supposed to put up with all this booming. Why? It's madness!
The biggest thing I have realized was that you have to choose your collaborators very carefully, and that not everybody can like you. The process of filmmaking is so difficult, there's no point in doing it unless you can do it the way you want.
Comic-Con is so legendary, so a great thrill to be invited along.
I don't want to find myself at the age of 60 waiting by the telephone for someone else to decide if I am capable of being in what might be a crummy TV production.
I was initially rather charmed by David Cameron, but I think he's revealing himself to be a slightly darker and less charismatic figure than he first appeared. There's a brutality about him.
The best advice is to get on with it. I'm very prone to falling into depressions - not clinical, just 'can't be bothered.' It's such a waste of time.
A year after winning the Oscar, almost to the day, I was directing a dog food commercial.
I have a fairly normal domestic life.
Even though I am a lifelong 'Doctor Who' fan, I've not played him since I was nine. I downloaded old scripts and practised those in front of the mirror.
In Peter Ackroyd's book 'London: The Biography,' he describes the route of the medieval wall that enclosed the original city. Take the book and follow it from the Tower of London via the Barbican to Ludgate Hill. You experience the real history of London.
One of the problems with episodic television of any color is that everything has got to be okay at the end of the episode so it can start again next week.
One of the very, very exciting things I have found here in L.A. is that no one talks to you about being Scottish. Whereas, if you are in London and you are trying to put films together and be a film-maker, there is a kind of unspoken sense that, if you are Scottish, you have something to overcome or else you cannot really do that project.
I'm fascinated by fire. When I was four, I wore an American fireman's hat all the time, and I still have one in my office today. Glasgow used to be called 'Tinderbox City;' there were always fires, people getting killed.
