I wrote a New Zealand film that did well in England called Constance, it won the London Film Festival I think.

I don't write films very often because trying to get them up is frustrating, and it takes a long time, and by the time you've finished doing it, you've had people cutting bits out of it, and you wonder why you ever bothered in the first place. Such is the life of a film writer, as in Adventures in the Screen Trade.

It takes a lot of quiet personal contemplation writing a film, and I've just never stopped as an actor virtually since 1965 when I left drama school. Getting time out to actually write is not easy.

I've been doing a play in New Zealand which may come to London with Greta Scacchi. It's called A Tree Falling and is about Alzheimers, and is very good. I'm also doing a solo show on Edgar Allan Poe, so I've been practicing my Nevermore.

The difference is that in Australia we have to work all the time to stay alive because we don't get residuals.