I was horrified when Richard Chamberlain and Rupert Everett said gay actors should stay in the closet. They were saying to people that they should live a lie and not be liberated, to live in fear of being found out.
I started to itch to do a play again and 'Macbeth' came to the surface in my mind. I never thought I would do it in a conventional way. A sweaty Macbeth with blood on his arms coming in fresh from the battle doesn't interest me.
You'll see Dame Judi Dench in a Bond film, in Shakespeare and then starring in her own sitcom. You never see that here with Meryl Streep.
Romeo is the most misunderstood character in literature, I think. He's hardcore to play because he's displaying the characteristics of Hamlet at the beginning, and, well, then everything else happens.
My feeling about work is it's much more about the experience of doing it than the end product. Sometimes things that are really great and make lots of money are miserable to make, and vice versa.
Kids are more genuine. When they come up and want to talk to you, they don't have an agenda. It's more endearing and less piercing to your aura.
It's really rare for film directors to be that interested in things other than themselves.
Pantomime is a big thing in the cultural calendar of my country, you know. So subtlety's not my forte.
Performing a one-man Macbeth feels like the greatest challenge.
Macbeth was the first play I ever read.
I don't feel I'm a compulsive person. I multitask. I'm really well-organised, and I have lots of people to help me.
When there's an adult person who's scaring you, you grow up pretty quickly.
Actually I like working kind of fast, because if you got it, why bother doing it over and over?
