The Godfather is a great film. Tom Hagen was a bit of an inspiration. There’s that scene where he turns up at the hospital where the Godfather is staying with all these private detectives, and he deals with the police. Then there’s another part where he says: ‘I have a special practice. I handle one client. Now you have my number. I’ll wait for your call.’ That kind of power, that kind of control was inspiring.
I quit studying law after a year. I switched to history and politics because there were a lot of hours in the classroom doing law. After university, I travelled and taught English abroad. My girlfriend at the time wanted to come back to the UK as she had a job lined up as an accountant, so I came back with her. I would have been happy staying a teacher. One of the things I applied for was law school and I ended up doing the conversion course. The rest is history.
