We play bad guys in Hollywood movies because of the Revolutionary War : oh yes, will you never forget - you big elephant you. And the French, who were on your side in the Revolutionary War (as you well know...), they play more esoteric characters. They play characters who turn up and go, 'My name is Pierre. I am 53. I have come to have sex with your family.' And the father of the house saying, 'Help yourself! Because of the debt of honour owed to General Lafayette.' [to audience] You know your own history, yeah? [pause] You don't know who he is, do you? What's this, the Spanish-American War, the French-Banana war? What?

Whereas if the film did any little bit of business in America, if the film did some decent bit of business, then Hollywood would take it, and they'd remake it …

But we play bad guys in Hollywood movies, like, take, uh, The Empire Strikes Back from the Star Wars trilogy. The Death Star - just full of British actors open…

We've got known in Britain for making the smaller films. Recently we've been pulling out of that into the more Trainspotting area, but the smaller films, they …

When I got back from the war in 1946 people didn't want the Mr. Smith kind of movie any more, and I refused to make war pictures.

I was 22 and I didn't know anything about politics, it didn't interest me.

We are like ignorant shepherds living on a site where great civilizations once flourished. The shepherds play with the fragments that pop up to the surface, ha…