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England is strictly class-based. What's surprising is how many films are still made with a load of people in silly frocks running around gardens and talking in middle-class accents.

I think it's important that we have a new batch of British film-makers that aren't doing the same old stuff. And that includes me.

The thing about the UK is we don't really make that many great movies.

Britain is producing some of the worst films in the world. Our film industry is desperate to be part of America, and we just churn out flaccid imitations of bad films over there.

I don't watch much British television at all. I mean, it's ironic because I used to work in it for years.

I don't care to analyze acting. On the other hand there is a fascination because distributors are putting out British films. You get films here with great performances you'll never see again. Why compare. We should go after the businessmen.

I don't enjoy British shows as a rule because British audiences are strange.

The really successful work in England tends to be working-class writers telling working-class stories. The film industry has been slow to wake up to that, for a variety of reasons. It still shocks me how few films are written or made in England about working-class life, given that those are the people who go to movies.

I was sick and tired of being an English actor who did a lot of American movies because I was cheap and good.

Britain has nurtured me and made me able to make movies that have travelled round the world.