David Thewlis

I'd had a relationship with a French girl, a Japanese girl, an American girl, a Filippina and she was there all the time - a Lancashire girl. I thought: 'It's a Lancashire girl I was looking for. Why didn't I realize it?' ”

I don't think its good for the soul to invest too much of yourself in technology. ”

Before Anna, I'd had a few relationships and I'm glad I've been around a bit. I know where it's gone wrong or know who are the wrong people for me and who I might be wrong for. ”

I've never been that bothered about doing stage or television. I just love doing films. With theatre, it goes on night after night. ”

Everybody knows someone like that: wonderful, attractive people full of passion and ideals. You envy them, but you know there's a dark side, which is brutal and cruel and violent. That dark side informs what's wonderful about them, and the passion and rage inform the darkness; they're inseparable. ”

When I'm sat in the pub with my mates, they've got their stories: Richard and Tracy have split up, they went to Arsenal and this fight broke out... My anecdotes are like, 'I was in this bar, and Michelle Pfeiffer rang, and I had wax in my ear, so I couldn't hear what she was saying...' ”

Trying to keep a relationship going on the phone is disastrous. ”

I see people around me with very unhappy love lives, who may have held out for that perfect somebody. And the failure to achieve that brings along a lot of bitterness which is very unattractive; therefore they're probably less likely to achieve it. ”

I don't worry. I'm more stoical. Of course I have insecurities. I fear getting older. I fear death and illness. I'm not prone to depression, but I get depressed because everybody gets depressed. Suddenly I'm away from my family or doing a job I'm not enjoying. ”

It's not my ambition to direct lots of films. I think if I direct one film in my whole life, why rush it? ”