The greatest thing you can have when you compose a film score is a bit of time to think before you have to charge straight in and do it.

I think the thing about being a film composer is that you have to be pretty eclectic-be able to turn your hand to all sorts of different styles and genres and be familiar with the latest rhythms and the range of an obscure instrument.

My favorite work is The Full Monty because I got an Oscar for it. But it was really hard work at the time. Sometimes comedy is not a bundle of laughs to actually do.

You know, nobody eats in England. Three or four pints of English beer a night fills you. I can't say I'm very impressed with the food in America. it's all sort of bland. Like turkey sandwiches.

We all shared an admiration of Debussy both as a musician and as sort of an icon for the 20th century. It seemed like an interesting idea to go right back 100 years to find the source of some new ideas now.

The Art of Noise was in this suspended animation. We never really went away. But I think it was quite an ecologically sound move not to release anything for about nine years, because there's far too much stuff out there anyway. Until we thought we had something really good, we didn't want to burden the world with more stuff.