Peter Mullan

“There's no such thing as an actor giving positive criticism to a director. The minute you say 'Don't you think it would look nicer...', that director's going to hate your guts. Particularly if it's a good idea.”

“In Scotland, we're a colony in more ways than one. So when directors come up to work, there's a very particular way they want Scotland to look like and to behave like.”

“Every film I've ever worked on, and that includes 'Braveheart' and 'Trainspotting,' I've always witnessed a director having a breakdown. Every director will have a day, without exception, where they just can't do it anymore, they don't know what to say to their cameraman, their cast. It's the sign of real, physical exhaustion.”

“The films that I really enjoy now are films that are made by, for wont of a better word, mavericks.”

“Just in relation to women, it's not that huge an imaginative leap to see the connection between the Taliban and the Catholic Church.”

“I was on the set of 'Braveheart' and my mate says to me, 'Do you think this film will be any good?' And I really meant this, too, I told him 'Let me put it this way - It won't win any awards.' Cut to: five Oscars.”

“What point is there to all the wealth and power that America may have if they can't look after its own?”

“Truth is I don't think God on a daily basis. I think politics, science.”

“As a dad I'm emotionally dedicated but I'm not 'figuring out their life plans'. But of course as I'm telling them about the rights of wrongs I'm thinking back to what I was like at their age.”

“The Vatican has tried to condemn 'The Magdalene Sisters' as a pack of lies and that I've made it all up - I wish I was that good a dramatist - and in terms of public relations, that was the daftest thing they ever did.”

“If you go into a bank or a shop and you want them to believe that you're going to shoot them, that's an acting exercise. If you want to turn to someone else who's as tooled up as you are and persuade them to put their knife down because you'll use your knife, that's an acting exercise. Nine out of 10 delinquents are frustrated actors.”

“I'm not a huge kind of visual director. For me, it's all about the acting. There's no greater buzz than working with actors and seeing what they can do and how much they can improve on what you'd written. That will always be on the top of my list. It's a real privilege to see it live before anyone else sees it.”

“In bringing the subject of religious oppression to a wider audience, I didn't just want to kick the Catholic Church but to poke a finger in the throat of theocracy and to let it be known that people shouldn't tolerate this anymore.”

“If you are the kind of guy who draws in 100 million people to see his film, you've got every right to be paid accordingly, but I qualify as a character actor. I don't put a bum on a seat.”

“I don't like the way some actors, when playing a nasty character, will try to grab hold of something good about them.”

“Life is much weirder than fiction; nothing's more absurd.”

“The Vatican is like a huge kind of magician's club. The more you look into it the more awful it becomes. And they're laughing at us. That's when I get angry.”

“You have to just go with your imagination, where your instinct takes you.”

“Most actors I know come from a screwed up background, so it makes sense that if you can walk on to a space and recreate your reality, then that's the place that will become very dear.”

“In the acting game, you spend a long time fighting against what the director perceives you to be. And half the time the directors don't know.”