To be human and to be adult means constantly to be in the grip of opposing emotions, to have daily to reconcile apparently conflicting tensions. I want this, but need that. I cherish this, but I adore its opposite too.
I have pushed the boat out as far as I should in terms of taking on too many things. I’m getting older and I just could not take it any more. I am now monitoring myself very closely and I’m just trying not to get into that sort of state again.
There is no particular Socratic or Dimechian or Kantian way to live your life. They don’t offer ethical codes and standards by which to live your life.
Now, bipolar disorder, it goes on a spectrum. There’s very severe conditions of it and there are milder ones. I’m lucky enough that it’s reasonably mild in my case.
Having been an actor and a writer for so long – 20 years or so – I felt that it would be daft to go to one’s grave without having directed. It’s a natural extension of writing and acting, and so I knew it would happen one day.
It is exhausting knowing that most of the time the phone rings, most of the time there’s an email, most of the time there’s a letter, someone wants something of you.
I’d probably want to teach at university, because children would drive me insane. I suspect it would be English literature, Shakespeare and so forth. I’ve always been deeply, deeply in love with that kind of thing.
I’ve always had great respect for Paddington because he is amusingly English and eccentric. He is a great British institution and my generation grew up with the books and then Michael Horden’s animations.
But if one could go back in time, I’d love to have been directed by Howard Hawks, who’s one of my great heroes. One of the greatest directors there ever was. He directed probably one of the greatest westerns of all time in ‘Rio Bravo’.
