By going to a preview, a director becomes insidiously infected by the process, so by the end of it, you're thinking, 'It may be a bit too long.'

I'm agnostic because I went through the usual process of parents insisting you go to church, and yet they didn't. So there's me, sitting in the chairs, thinking, 'Jeez, why am I here? I'd rather be playing tennis, seriously.'

I think, at the end of the day, filmmaking is a team, but eventually there's got to be a captain.

If studios don't get their money back, we don't have any movies. So it is important that films are successful, and I am fully supportive of that because I'm not just a director, I'm also not stupid. I've been in this business long enough and, to a certain extent, I'm a businessman; I know the importance of that.

But Gladiator is one of my favourite adventures because I really loved going into the world. I loved creating the world to the degree where you could almost smell it.

The whole process of making movies and writing screenplays is visceral and intuitive.