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I think Ingmar Bergman, Francoise Truffaut - all these people created images in my mind, beautiful pictures, I loved what was known at that time as the foreign film.

In college, when a girlfriend asks you to watch a film in black and white, you do it. That's when I discovered a lot of films. I was really obsessed with Bergman, the whole world he creates. One that I always quote a lot is 'Autumn Sonata.' When you see women go through issues with their mom, you realize how right and poignant Bergman was.

I'm an incurable romantic, and Casablanca's one of the most romantic pictures I've ever seen - the combination of Bogart and Bergman is just magical.

I had grown up thinking of movies as something to eat popcorn with. Bergman and the other European directors were the first ones to open my eyes to film as art.

I remember those days with Bergman with great nostalgia. We were aware that the films were going to be quite important, and the work felt meaningful.

When I went to university, I finally got exposed to European films, and they had a strong impact on me. I felt those films had a lot of things to say that weren't getting expressed in the films I was used to seeing.

When I stopped making films, they were getting on to the more realistic films and the explicit films and all. They were depicting life as it is, and some of it was unpleasant. I gradually moved away from that.

Really, I do not know whether my paintings are surrealist or not, but I do know that they are the frankest expression of myself.

If people ask me, 'For you, what is your most important film?' I have a feeling that they all sort of want me to answer with one of the Bergman films. But I cannot choose.

I was a terrible painter - my portraits looked like the evil chimera love-children of Picasso's demoiselles and the BBC test card clown.