"Al Pacino’s performance is connected to something deep in my psyche; he feels like a wild animal trapped in a place and running around manically. I love the mania of Al Pacino’s performance. I feel a connection to that hyper energy and burning ball of rage. It’s so great how he turns the whole movie. He becomes the hero that you wouldn’t expect, and everybody is cheering for him. I love that. I think in my film it does kind of the same thing. He doesn’t seem like your hero, but he becomes that. Not to mention the fact that this movie, it keeps the kinetic thriller energy, but at the same time, there are there these scenes that you can’t believe they’re still going on, these hilarious seemingly improvised bursts of energy. Between Al Pacino and Sidney Lumet and John Cazale, it’s unforgettable and beyond inspiring, to say the least. You’re rooting for both of them even though you don’t want to be. It’s perfect. You fall in love with them, and they fall in love with each other. It’s genius — perfection. I know that’s five but can I have an honorable mention?"

"I got to Scott Walker quite late. I got into him because I read a lot of comparisons between Dog Man Star or 'The Big Time', the B-side to [Suede's] 'Animal Nitrate', and him. I knew The Walker Brothers of course, but I didn't know his solo stuff. What I like about Scott Walker is that it's millimetres away from easy listening, but is still not easy listening. There's the occasional little detail or bar that he puts in there that makes it not easy listening. Scott 3 for me is an amazing record. The first few songs on that, especially songs like 'Big Louise', are such powerful pieces of music. He's one of the greatest singers ever. It's amazing to see how powerful a voice can be, I don't mean in a macho sense, but how if the voice is doing something fascinating how minimal the music can be. I love the way he's still making strange records, like The Drift and Tilt. You've got to admire him for marginalising himself, and still doing interesting stuff at his age, because it's quite rare isn't it? You wonder where he's going to go next."

"Yeah, and The Island of Lost Souls is amazing, from 1932 with Charles Laughton as Dr. Moreau. That movie is amazing. That movie’s dark. For anyone who hasn’t seen it, the extras — I mean, even now you watch like, this is really disturbing. The extras are supposed to be the half-man/half-animal people. You can tell they got really bizarre-looking extras before they did the makeup, and everybody looks like they’re deformed and f—ed up. Again, Lugosi plays the leader of the beast men. He’s not in it a lot, but of course he has the line that everybody remembers about the House of Pain: “He who breaks the law goes back to the House of Pain.” He’s in the movie for five minutes and steals the movie. Charles Laughton is incredible. But it’s demented again. The basic premise is a crazy one. They have the beast men and they’re being operated on and just screaming. It’s like, “This is not fun.” You have little kids running out of the theater in tears, or adults. It’s amazing. Still amazing. The cinematography’s amazing. Everything about it is just incredible."