The Blade Runner and Alien film-maker on his run-ins with critics, the space suits he keeps in his cellar in France – and his love of swearing
You’ve explored worlds of dystopia, historical epics and perplexing moral aspects of the universe. What idea or question has haunted you the longest? RemyNaylor
Who’s up there. He’d better show himself shortly, because we’re getting into a terrible mess down here. I mean, we are the fucking plague, 7.5 billion people, we can’t handle the planet. As you get older, you do wonder: is it going to be a guy with a long beard and long, flowing white robes, or is it just going to be a void? I don’t dwell on it. It’s weird. I feel like I’m still 21. It’s odd and strange.
Did you score a lifetime’s supply of bread for directing the Hovis adverts back in the 70s? TeeDubyaBee
No. But I ate enough Hovis as a kid in Stockton-on-Tees, with cherry jam and butter, toasted – holy shit. I did five Hovis commercials. They were all classics. The most famous is the boy walking up the hill. The first one I shot up near Halifax, in a mining town. Oddly enough, I might go back up there to do my next movie, which is a war movie [Battle of Britain], so I’m well versed in the area.
