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

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.

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

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.

My two elder sisters married Englishmen and went abroad.

The studio system reminds me of the stock market.

Chicago actors are hard-nosed. They’re tough on themselves and their fellow actors. They’re self-demanding.

We’d go through the script together, rehearsing it before every shot with the other actors. He was just easy to work with. We were able to put it in my language, which was really important.

I started out as a very traditional actor. The first thing I ever did in terms of performance was singing.

What would I have done if I wasn’t an actor? Probably rob banks.

My height can be a problem. A lot of directors and photographers are sometimes not happy because I’m pretty tall and especially if I work with short actors the difference can be pretty massive.

I never fully committed to the child actor thing. I also liked being a regular kid and being a student.

I feel a little guilty only being an actor.

All you have to do to be a camera actor is tell the truth.