"The world is split into two kinds of people, those who would go out for a drink with John Lennon, and those who'd choose Paul McCartney ... After the Beatles came back from India, Lennon wrote 'Happiness Is a Warm Gun' and McCartney wrote 'Ob-La-Di'. End of argument." "My plan - well, it isn't much of a plan, but it's mine and I like it - is to try to do lots of different things." "I love the way British people see ourselves. We say, 'He's like us, a bit of a loser.'" "A woman, who shall remain nameless, said to me, 'You're going to love LA, Paul, because over here ambition is not a dirty word.' And I thought, 'Well, you've named one of the things that I feel quite patriotic about.' It's still a little bit embarrassing in Britain if you're seen to try." "One of my film heroes is Peter Weir, who made Fearless but also made Green Card. Ang Lee makes a western, he makes a Seventies psycho movie, a costume drama and a monster movie. I wanted to be like that. I finished this in October and I haven't worked since, because my wife [the actress Jennifer Connelly] had just had the baby and I wanted to be with them. But I've just taken on a film called Firewall, which is a thriller with Harrison Ford. I'm doing it because I've never done a thriller before and I just get ... I just get bored if I don't do different things." "People like Cary Grant, Will Smith and Hugh Grant do it brilliantly. They are just relentlessly charming and self-deprecating. I found that really difficult. But there may be other reasons for that." "I wouldn't want to tumble with Harrison Ford in real life. He's a tough son of a bitch. I threw that man through a window seven times and he landed on his head, got up, rebuilt the window with the crew and then got thrown through it again. I hit that man in the stomach and he said, 'Could you just land it a bit harder so I could feel it?' So I landed it a bit harder and he wanted a bit more so he could react to it. Finally, I just wound one up and let loose on him and he said, 'That's it!' It was the most humiliating day of my life." "I'm English, so I can't wear a baseball cap. I'd look like white trash, like I should have a beer and a dog called Skeeter."