"I do go home. I still have family there. But I don't go back as
often as I'd like. When I'm there, I try to go to Café des Amis, a
Mexican restaurant. I guess I was 16 when we started going there.
It had just opened. And I'm 27 now. The
food is outstanding. The
best Mexican food you'll eat. Honestly. I've traveled around
Mexico, and I still find Café des Amis to be a pretty good match to
anything I've had in
Mexico. It's in an old building overlooking
the river and the West Gate Towers, which are the gates to the
city. It used to be a store where they sold odds and ends, brass
objects and things. There's also Papa's Fish Bar in
Canterbury. I
remember that place. They have great white bread. I remember that
loaf called Mother's Pride, with Marmite. I had dinner recently
with Ridley Scott in
London at Cipriani, a great little restaurant.
We were there for Ridley's birthday and the waiter came over and
said, 'Ah, we had your friend
Johnny Depp here last night.' It was
one of those funny stories, ships passing in the night. I think he
was there shooting
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Another place I went to once is the Wolseley. It has really good
food. More recently, when I've been popping back, I've been having
nice meals at J. Sheekey, in the West End. Fantastic fish.
"Often, I'll dream of walking through streets in England that I
used to walk through. When I was in
New Zealand, I had very vivid
dreams of all these different streets I used to walk through,
particularly in my hometown. St. Thomas Hill in Canterbury is one
that was locked in my head. It actually led to my old school, and I
grew up on that hill. We had a house on St. Thomas Hill. But
growing up in Canterbury, the cathedral was always right in my
backyard, and for different school functions we would go to the
cathedral. And at
Christmas my mom loved for us to go and sing
carols at the cathedral. I think that sort of space instills a
sense of awe and history and imagination. All of the history that
went along with Canterbury, being brought up there, it became a
part of who I was. I've never really thought about it like this,
but I suppose it may have had some lasting impression that has
inspired me to do the historical, epic kind of stories."