“I went to the Glasgow Youth Theatre and they just let me in. But I was so shy that I was there for about six weeks without actually introducing myself.”

It’s easier for me to get three times the amount of money I really want.

It means that if they misunderstood Comfort and Joy, they misunderstood my other films.

I didn’t think Comfort and Joy was going to be a box-office smash.

Perhaps naively I thought people understand what humor was, that it was invented by the human race to cope with the dark areas of life, problems and terrors.

I’m not fond of any of my films in an intimate way, but Gregory’s Girl would be number 4 on my list.

At the moment, my mother is the only one left in Glasgow, although it’s certainly my home.

I’d made these experimental films but I thought the major chore of a filmmaker was to relate to actors.

The movie business is very much like that: people in authority making purely emotional decisions instead of interesting rational ones.

My two elder sisters married Englishmen and went abroad.

The studio system reminds me of the stock market.

I was introducing [director and producer] Hal Roach – Mr. Roach was 100 years old, he was one of the fathers of early days in films, he put Laurel with Hardy, he created the Our Gang kids, and all these silent movies he did – he was a giant.

We believe that introducing surface-to-air missiles in Syria is going to change the balance of power on the ground.