Quotes

Having won awards for 'Street Life' with Helen McRory and Rhys Ifans, I was invited by the Director General of the BBC, John Birt, later Lord Birt, to join a meeting of celebrities. John offered the audience time for questions, so I asked 'where are the black actors and producers?' In a room of about 140 people, there were none and this was 1996.

Being a Welsh film director is a bit like being an Icelandic cricketer... It takes a bit of finding.

Film is an art form. Unfortunately, it's used as wallpaper. The most important thing a film maker can do is bite the hand that feeds him

Welsh tea is better than English coffee

Filmmakers who become film directors usually do it for the money, and forget the real purpose of film - to teach poetically and powerfully what our society has created. So-called 'great filmmakers' paint by numbers. The cavemen who drew images of their life on their dark walls were more honest.

The trick of filmmaking is to follow John Huston's advice, and that is to film one image only. No repeats, no take two's. That way, the producers can't screw up or ask their most recent girlfriends' input...

I have fought for equality for all races, all colours, all genders. I have had huge rows with some very famous people when casting black female actors instead of blonde white women. When I cast Eriq LaSalle and Ving Rhames as the lead actors in my film 'Murder in Oakland' for the BBC, I felt I had done something important, that is giving lead roles to relatively unknown young men. Both of whom later then had showreels of substance to continue with their careers