I've been taking my time now between projects looking for stuff that has a little bit more substance, that isn't surface. Some of the films that I've done in the past really were surface.

The first job I had was a Pampers commercial. And I used to go with my father whenever he would do a performance. I remember clinging to his legs, saying, 'Please. Take me with you.'

I am a gypsy, in a way. It's a condition of my profession.

I don't think of myself as offbeat and weird. As a kid, I saw myself as the type of guy who would run into a burning building to save the baby.

I do not want art for a few any more than education for a few, or freedom for a few.

My mother wanted me to be a teacher. She had this vision of me walking across the quadrangle in an Oxford college wearing my academic gown.

You never stop learning. If you have a teacher, you never stop being a student.

I would probably have been very content as a scholar to have carried on organising exhibitions and writing books and teaching.