As an actor I think sometimes producers need a little bit of encouragement to see you in a particular role they may not have as much imagination as you would expect.

If my accent betrayed my foreign birth it also stamped me as an enemy in the imagination of the producers.

In the old days... it was a basic cardinal fact that producers didn't have opinions. When I was producing natural history programmes I didn't use them as vehicles for my own opinion. They were factual programmes.

One of my producers said this business is like a hamster on that little wheel thing that goes around and around. You may have a great day and get great ratings but then you've got another show to do - whatever moment of success or happiness you have you've got to keep grinding it out for the next day.

I've been watching more American TV because of all the great TV series that have come out in the last five to 10 years. I'm a 'Sopranos' fan I'm a 'Wire' fan I'm a 'Mad Men' fan. I'm a 'Deadwood' fan. It makes me optimistic for the future of storytelling on TV that producers are willing to take that kind of jump.

I've never let producers tell me what to do. Even when I was making television I always did what I wanted to do and if I couldn't I didn't do it. It was a freedom that these days young directors starting out don't have.

Animals that we eat are raised for food in the most economical way possible and the serious food producers do it in the most humane way possible. I think anyone who is a carnivore needs to understand that meat does not originally come in these neat little packages.

I have come close to producing films. But generally by the time they hit the screen there's about 50 people with producer credits so what's the point. I usually find scripts I like with no money attached and take them to producers that I know and try to raise finance.

There were all us baby boomers who had a grammar school education started to learn then went on the pill the whole thing and so there are today a lot more women writers editors producers and so a lot more women's stories. God the BBC's practically run by women.

We would make songs and the producers said we should play it for my dad. I was kind of scared I didn't know what to think cuz we were just joking around.