Are you going to be watching Withnail and I when you present it?

No. No no no. I've never seen it. I'm introducing it and doing a Q&A beforehand, which is weird. They told me that people who have booked to see it, will have already seen it. So go figure that one!

I loved the script, and I know that the process of making it was fantastic. It couldn't have been a better first time experience. But watching myself is something I've never gotten used to. Like people listening to the sound of their voice on a tape recorder – its just gross. But I understand that other people enjoy it (Withnail and I) – because I loved doing it. I loved the script, so I understood that completely.

Ok. So, please feel free to steer this conversation in any you want to.

Oh no no, you're the captain of the ship.

Ok, I'm driving? I'm ready. What was the process of writing the Wah Wah Diaries? Was it a kind of parsing together all your journaling from the time and putting it together in hindsight?

No, not in hindsight at all. I wrote it as I do a diary every day, every single night. So the book wrote itself really, over five years. And then I handed all the material, unchecked, unvarnished, to a publisher and editor. And the only notes I got back were, "can you legally corroborate and back up everything that you've said against this wretch female producer who was such a fucking nightmare?". And the proof in the pudding was that she couldn't sue me, because I could prove everything. My book is a warning to anyone who thinks of working with this maniac – never to do it again.

Can I ask you how your mum reacted to seeing Wah Wah?

She thought the film was amazing. Her response was even more amazing to me, that she endorsed it and liked it. So it was a measure of her generosity and forgiveness when I went ahead and made this movie. But she had read the script beforehand, so she knew what was coming down the line.

It sounds like such an incredible – to use a terrible term – "healing" that you two were able to have together.

It was. A real reconciliation. After 35 years of pretty much stand-off.

Did you go through something like, after your father had died, that you felt you really needed to be able to mend relationships, when you get that real sense of the value of the people who are around?

Yep. Definitely. I think that the fact that I've had such a long marriage -24 years, and have an 18 year old daughter, all of that - my good adult family life has certainly outweighed all the stuff that went down when I was a kid. And I absolutely worshipped by father. It was just that when he was drunk, he turned into this maniac. So all things considered, I'm fine.

You've alluded to in other interviews, that you feel better about it all now because you've been "fixed". Did you want to talk about that? Did you go through therapy and what kind of therapy?

I had psychoanalysis for 18 months when I was 42. And what he did - this absolutely brilliant man – was start off by telling me that I was 42, which was exactly the age that my father was when his wife left him, his job in the Colonial Service had come to an end abruptly mid-career because of Independence, and he had a ten year old child.

So I was 42 and had a ten year old child. And he said that subconsciously, I'd kind of frozen in the state that my father was at 42. So once I understood that and then unravelled everything, then all became clear. And it brought about a reconciliation with my mother. Because after 18 months of trying every subterfuge I could, she wrote me a very long letter, explaining everything that happened from her point of view, which she'd never ever done before. I'd never had explanation from her as to why she did what she did. So that, was amazing.

So how often were you going to analysis?

Once a week.

I went through analysis as well, after my father died when I was 23. And I was probably a little to young to fully appreciate it. I found it an incredibly difficult kind of therapy. Would you agree?

Yes. But I was so ready to do it. To unload everything at 42, which is twenty years on from when you were. And my dad died when I was 23 - so same deal. I was so angry about a whole pile of stuff, I needed to offload it. So maybe that was…

Really the right time?

Yep.

I think that it must be so much more difficult to be a man and lose your father young. Because you don't have – not that you had a desirable relationship – but to have that person gone, who might tell you who to be in certain situations.

Yeah. But I think, to lose a parent is absolutely catastrophic, at whatever age. Because there's nobody to turn to, as it were, for your guide. You're out there then, doing it on your own.

Yes. It's strange. I've found it over time to have been a kind of blessing – as well as being terrible and awful. Having to find your own way, can be pretty incredible.

How old are you now?

I'm 26 now.

Right. And what did your dad die of?

He went out the best way possible, actually. To tell you briefly. He was out at a bar having dinner with his oldest friend from school. And he had a steak and whatever he would have, and had a Guinness. And he actually fell dead of a heart attack on the floor of the bar.

Wow. So an ideal death for him, but terrible for you.

Yes. So that's three years ago this week, actually. And every (Sydney) Writer's Festival, I think of my dad. Because I'd been there all day, and he called to ask to have lunch with me. And I'd say no, I'd love to but I can't. Because I was going to see someone speak – I can't even remember who it was.

Right.

So I'd said "I'll see you tonight for a drink." And that's where he'd been waiting for me, at this bar's restaurant. And I never got to meet him there.

Do you feel guilty about that?

Yeah, I do. I do, still. And it was two nights in a row that I'd blown him off. And I can't even remember what these stupid things were that had seemed to important, that I had to do on a Friday and a Saturday night.

Yeah, ok. But you can't beat yourself up about that.

No, not anymore. So anyway, I wanted to ask you more about the process of writing. It's not rewriting your life, but it's ordering things for yourself.

Well as soon as you write it down, you try and put yourself into the character of your parents. Then you have to see it from a point of view that's not your own. And then that's how understanding and compassion comes into it. And then, once that is in then you can forgive. I think, anyway.

I think that's amazing. It's so important to be able to do that. The things that you went through from so young, to be able to have that moment of forgiveness. When your dad told you on his deathbed that he'd always loved your mother, what was that like?

Like a bomb going off in my face. I couldn't believe it. Instantly, I absolutely understood how and why all this had happened to him. And why he drank. Because he'd had this unrequited love for my mother.

For years and years and years.

Yep. Which is why he drank – to numb it out.

You were saying that you have such a terrifically solid marriage, and adult life. Do you feel like you had this great example of absolutely how not to live, growing up?

Completely.

And that informed your own adult life? You know, "I'm NEVER going to be like that".

Absolutely. Though, I thought I'd never get married, never have a child. Because I never wanted to repeat that. And then I fell in love. I met the right person. I was lucky.

So that was enough to conquer the fear? It was actually your wife, actually the right person that did that for you?

Yeah, absolutely. You have no control over who you fall in love with. In the process of that happening to me, it made it easier for me to understand how my father never got over my mother leaving. Because if you do love somebody, it's completely irrational. You've got no control over your heart.

And hopefully like it has for you, it works out. But when it doesn't, it's devastating beyond almost anything

Oh yes.

Well, this story has taken up so much of your creative life the last few years, do you feel like it's been done justice? It's finished

Yes. All put to bed.

And now?

Well now I'm writing another screenplay. Which is about what goes on, on the set of a disaster movie, which is a disaster in itself. It's about actors.

Having directed, how do you feel about actors now?

My respect for them and my love for fellow actors is absolutely enormous. Because I think that actors take risks every time they do something. And their willingness to do anything, to go anywhere, keeps them young. Keeps me young. I think that when you get the chance to do it, it's the best job in the world. You get to travel, you get to meet people. You get to experience things. It's like you have nine lives.

I've read you saying that you have very little patience for actors who compare their job to climbing Everest, as if turning up to exotic locales and being ridiculously over paid is so hard. I found Anthony Hopkins say something similar. "Please don't act as if what I do is so hard. I learn my lines, I turn up somewhere beautiful. I get paid. It's fantastic."

(Laughs) I'd say that's just him being modest. I worked with Anthony on Dracula. He is the most prepared actor you will ever meet. He knows every single line of dialogue, he'd read everything. So I'd say that's slightly him putting on the charm. But what he's saying is, it is a job. It's not rocket science. It's not a cure for cancer.

Did you have aspirations from when you were young to go into acting and performing?

Oh yes. I started off with a shoe-box theatre, that I made of cut-out figure made of Popsicle sticks. Then I had marianettes, puppets, string puppets, amateur theatre, plays at school, university, drama school. So there's a clear line all the way through. And I have no idea where it comes from.

So what of the rest of your family?

Well I have a younger brother I haven't seen in 27 years.

How do you feel about that?

Relief. I have absolutely nothing in common with him whatsoever. He lives in Africa, and he's done two absolutely poisonous slash fests against me in the tabloid press in England. And I just accept that as sibling rivalry, or jealousy, and that I have no control over it whatsoever.

Do you ever hypothosize as to what might have happened to you if you hadn't built your own primary family, if you hadn't found that security? Or do you now allow yourself to think about that?

I think it's in your DNA whether you see life as the glass half full or half empty. And I always thought that it was half full. No matter what happened I think there's always positive stuff.

Where you ever an angry young man?

Yeah. Oh yeah, plenty anger. Hence psychoanalysis when I was 42. You got in there early. Which is obviously why you're sane and sound now.

I absolutely wasn't beforehand. Trust me!

I wish I'd done that. I wish I'd had that opportunity.

I really had that feeling, during it, a horrible notion of being taken apart. Completely.

Were you forced to go, or did you choose to?

Well, I'd had what was essentially a breakdown, I guess. I terrible, clinical depression that lasted a very long time. And at the time was a university and working a shitty nightjob and trying to get through paying bills, and to finish my degree. Eventually it was a friend of a friend who'd gone out and found someone who would see me for free. And she's an incredible woman who I have a really deep love for.

So you still see her?

Yes. Every so often I go to check in with her. She's the most amazingly still person I've ever come across. Just completely filled with wisdom and compassion. But it was only once I got through to the end that I was glad I had persisted. There would be times when I would say I just cannot do this, anymore.

Yes. It's painful. You have to want to do it, though. It's like an addict: you can't cure an addiction, unless the person makes the choice that they need or have to do it themselves.

Yes. All those horrible clichés are totally true – that people won't help themselves until they want to. But seeing someone in incredible pain, or destruction, is so frustrating for everyone else in their life. They won't find help until they're ready.

That's right. So you were made to go – like "into the straight jacket!"

Yes – pretty much! So, what else would you like to talk about

I have no idea!

I was very intimidated before. But you're very lovely.

Thankyou. No need to be intimidated. There's nothing to intimidate.

Let's talk about who your favourite directors are.

Well I worked with him. Robert Altman is my favourite director. Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, and Jane Campion. "Portrait of a Lady" I thought was just extraordinary.

This makes me think of seeing Jane Campion's short films in highschool. We had the most incredible history teacher, who showed us all the incendiary counter-culture films from the 70s, Apocalypse Now, Taxi Driver, (Janes Campion's) Peel – all these things at the moment when your mind is wide open. And of course one of those films was Withnail and I.

That's a good teacher.

I wrote him a letter to tell him what's happening. You know, "I'm speaking to Richard E. Grant today, and telling him it's because of you that I wanted to be a journalist." He would show us all these R rated movies, and I remember lying on the floor of the classroom, in the dark, just having my mind totally blown. I couldn't believe this whole world existed.

Ha! (Laughing) So he corrupted you?

Yes, completely! We were very nearly scandalised. It absolutely informed everything that I did afterwards.

How fantastic.

Yes. It was an all girls school. And he would give us very sternly, this advice, that we should never, ever be depended financially on a man. Drilled that into us from a very early age. This rather gruff man, telling us how it should be.

Good on him – I love that! I tell me daughter that every day. Having a key teacher in your life – so many people who've gone on to be successful have exactly one of these people that you're talking about.

It's such a rare and lucky thing.

I had one in high school, my music and history teacher. And I've stayed friends with her, she's now 82. I still email her every other day.

Wow.

Yep.

She must be so proud.

Ha! She's really a mentor. But she's also critical. And you know, keeps me on my toes.

Do you think she ever still has that mental image of you so young?

Yeah, maybe. I mean, I am 32 years younger than her. But we became great friends. It's really special.

Tell me about your favourite cities in the world.

Well, I love Sydney. I think it's absolutely extraordinary.

I only wish we weren't so far away from everything.

No, I like that. Because it's a great reward. You travel all this distance and then you get here and it's a staggering place.

Were you ever tempted to move to America?

Well I lived in Los Angeles for two years. In 1990-91. And that was enough. I'm not America, and I knew that. It's like only be going away do you realise who you really, truly are.

Here's some stock questions. Tell me about the music you like.

Everything but heavy metal. I was never a convert to that. But there's maybe time.

There's time yet, to in your retirement enjoy some Iron Maiden. Or And Justice for All, that kind of thing.

Oh yes. But I'm not going to be retiring.

Do you want to work until you drop?

Yeah, absolutely. Because I love my job.

Me too. I never feel like I'm working when I get to be doing stuff like this. I still have no idea how it really happened, other than through bald-faced lying.

HA! (laughs) You fake it till you make it.

Tell me about your first film, on the set of Withnail and I.

Everyone was very professional. All the crew knew exactly what they were doing. The director had rehearsed us for three weeks. So we knew all dialogue and the background of the characters. And a whole bunch of us had gone up to this isolated place in Cambria in the North of England. So it felt like us against the world. It was really, really good.

On Wah Wah, your pretty awful experiences on the set must have made you particularly aware of how to foster a good feeling there instead.

Absolutely. People work creatively in the best conditions if they're being supported as opposed to being sabotaged.

(Publicist makes dreaded "winding clock" hand gesture.)

This has been such a pleasure. Thankyou so much. I hope you enjoy the rest of your time in the city and that everything goes well at the festival.

Thankyou. Best of luck in you career.

Thankyou.

Good to meet you. Goodbye.

Goodbye.