"One of my favorite directors is Peter Weir, and a film that I watched recently of his is Gallipoli — Mel Gibson and Mark Lee, as well as a bunch of other great Australian actors. I think that film for me is this incredible combination of the brutality of war and yet the sensitivity of the human spirit, and I think Mel Gibson is absolutely electric and fantastic in that film, but I think Mark Lee is utterly heartbreaking. His almost non-sexual personality and spirit is so engaging and sensitive that the film, and the combination with his performance, the energy of the film, and then the music in that film really — I think music is a really important aspect in film, and, as you know, you can play Yakety Sax over a scene, or you can play something from Morricone over a scene, and the scene will then have a completely different meaning and feel. That’s an extreme example, but if music is done well in a movie, it can turn anything, even a three dimensional performance — it can make it turn more three dimensional because it enhances what is meant to be there. I think that the music used in Gallipoli is just utterly heartbreaking. Really, really heartbreaking and beautiful."

"There are a few different ways to experience the Twin Peaks franchise. One is as pure vibes—as Brenda Walsh puts it, “it’s not hippie witch, it’s Twin Peaks and it’s very in.” That’s easy to dismiss, but honestly it’s often what gets me to watch. Another way, and this seems to have gotten increasingly dominant lately, is as a puzzle-box mystery-mythology, a more arcane Lost. And that’s wonderful, if only because it encourages a communal conversation to untangle it. But Twin Peaks is also about a teenage girl who was repeatedly raped and ultimately murdered by her father. About how the ongoing abuse shaped her whole world, creating desires and addictions that terrified and excited her, and drawing in a circle of men fascinated by the prospects of saving and/or exploiting her. About how the tortured energy she exuded made the other girls, even her best friend, jealous. It’s a scenario so human and awful that those people—or a viewer—might need a whole fantastic mythical framework just to be able to take it in. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me foregrounds this last aspect. And that’s why, to me, it’s the beating heart of the series."

"Let’s go with Unforgiven. Again, I believe that was an Academy Award winner. A number of things were so fantastic about that film. The Western genre had died — it had gone away by that time — and here comes Clint Eastwood, who was known for Spaghetti Westerns, which were of course Westerns often with Italian directors, or whatever the reason they call it that. And whether those were good or bad, they defined an era of filmmaking, a certain type of movie that came out three or four times a year, and then they vanished. And then in walks this guy who’d done that era and was a major star, a major, major star, and I believe he directed Unforgiven. How entirely different from any other Western we’ve ever seen. And you care for this guy who spends the entire film telling people he’s changed. He’s not the guy he once was. And then, just when you care about this character, you realize he’s the same guy he always was. When push comes to shove. It was a bit of a surprising ending. And yet, to me, resonates to the overall quality of the film. And it’s one that stays with me."

"We saw their show a couple of weeks back, and of course I love the Black Moth Super Rainbow stuff, and Tobacco too. But I have to say when I was at the show there was a lot of new music he played and I was like 'Fuck, that's cool'. And then he gave me the new record and I discovered that a lot of what they played is on that, so to me it's the best that they've, or he's, done. He does the same song, over and over. He's working in the same colour palette every time, and he knows it, and he knows he's trapped in it, and I know it too. And it's rejuvenating. Even though you've heard these sounds he does a lot, it still comes back at you. Very effective. It's very evocative. He uses all these reverbs and echoes and distortions and it doesn't become music to you, it becomes an atmosphere, a mood. That's what a lot of this music I've talked about does: you don't think it's about drugs, you don't think it's about guitar playing, it's about a world that's created in your mind as these sounds are playing. It's fantastic."

"It was my daughter Tiffany who made me see the beauty of this film—she loved it so much as a child, and I think in many ways it spoke to her on the difficult choice for women artists between art and love, a calling of career and the calling of the heart. The Technicolor restoration of the film is stunning. This was one of the early titles in the Criterion Collection, and it’s just gorgeous. The DVD production was helped along with the loving hands (certainly one of my favorite pair of hands on earth) of film editor Thelma Schoonmaker, Michael Powell’s widow.There’s fantastic commentary with cinematographer Jack Cardiff and Ian Christie, as well as Martin Scorsese, a close, dear friend of Powell’s. And actress Moira Shearer gives such a wonderful account of the feelings of awe and fear of the dancers around working with living ballet legend Leonide Massine . . . and how in spite of this, she and Massine came to get on like a house on fire. He would fill her with the most amazing tales of his life in the last true golden age of ballet with the great dance impresario Sergei Diaghilev—I cannot even imagine what a thrill these hours of conversation must have been!"

"That would have to be a James Bond film, and then I was trying to think of what my favorite one would be. And I guess it would probably be You Only Live Twice. Mr. Connery. Even though I really like Roger Moore, too. I mean I liked all the Bonds, honestly. Including the newest, Mr. Craig. He’s fantastic. But yeah, You Only Live Twice. It takes place in Japan as a part of it, and you’ve got Blofeld, Spectre, the classic villains, and the whole thing with the volcano that’s really a secret lair. And you’ve got Russia and the United States. You know, it’s huge in scope. And I don’t know, it’s this great classic Bond to me, and a great song, a great theme song. I think the first time I saw it, I definitely saw it on TV. I’m not sure what year it came out, but I may not have even been born yet when that came out. I mean my first exposure to James Bond was absolutely on television. And then my first one to see in the theater, which I also love, is The Spy Who Loved Me. That was pretty exciting. That was the first Bond I saw at a movie theater."

"I love the sound of ‘I Can’t Explain’. It’s my favourite and I love all those earlier ones. I used do them onstage with a group called The Nightriders and The Idle Race as well. ‘Pictures Of Lily’ and that kind of stuff. I used to love playing all those Who songs. They had something about them, The Who. It was like magic, the sound. And just watching Pete Townshend, he was always amazing. Did I ever catch them back in the day? Yeah! Not half! The loudest bloody thing I’ve ever heard in my life! I went to this place called Midnight City in Birmingham and it was quite a big room and everyone was waiting for them: ""wow! We’re gonna see The Who!"" and they struck up and went BLAAANG! and your earholes would go WOOOOM! and you couldn’t hear a fucking thing! Your hearing was gone! You know when your ears go inside out? And it’s like silence and you can’t hear fuck all for the next 10 minutes until your hearing starts coming back! And gradually you could start hearing them again. It was like a compressor, almost. It was really exciting to hear that when you’re a kid. And the tunes they played were so great. It was beautiful. Fantastic!"

"Well, maybe that’s why David Heyman and Paul King cast me in Paddington, I don’t know [laughs]. You’ll be surprised by my fifth one, then. OK, try and find the link with this: Pulp Fiction. I think that’s the exception that proves the rule. I think it was great, it was such a breath of fresh air. That same year, I remember, I was completely enamored by two films: The Lion King and Pulp Fiction, so you couldn’t get more extreme than those two. They both have death in them, I suppose. But Pulp Fiction was such a great breath of fresh air when it came out, and I think it still remains such a cool and fantastic piece of the cinema. Obviously it was the second film after Reservoir Dogs that brought Tarantino into the fold, but I think it’s a gloriously slick and entertaining piece of movie-making, structurally and cinematically, with these great, legendary performances that were instantly loved, and instantly classic and endlessly imitated. The number of people I’ve seen doing Christopher Walken impressions — or Bruce Willis impressions from that movie — or indeed Samuel L Jackson… It’s sort of a great cinematic feat and [it’s filled with] dark, dark humor."