Art Starter: Anthony Skuse

What would you be doing if you weren't a director? I'd be a bum most likely. I am lucky that I can make a sort of a living teaching actors and love it. I would have loved to dance, but that wasn't really the way to go for a kid from Bondi during the '60s, well not in my family anyway.

What inspires you artistically? A number of years ago I did some work with a Javanese practitioner called Suprapto Suryodarma and he changed the way I saw the world, in terms of composition and more importantly, the way I understood my place in it. The visual arts – my house is full of paintings and books. Music – often music provides the key to a play's emotional landscape, and there are a number of film directors I always come back to when I prepare for a show: Tarkovsky, Visconti and Bergman - these directors are masters of composition and light and in the rehearsal room I'm inspired by my actors and the way they engage with space and each other.

Who is your favourite fictional character? Becky Sharp from Vanity Fair - she's bad to the bone but intelligent, adventuress and full of spirit.

What is your relationship like with your grandmother(s)? I only knew my material grandmother, who we all called Mark, I guess my older sister couldn't say Grandma. In photos she looks formidable, but I remember her as being very loving with the softest skin and 'tuck-shop' arms. She died when I was about four. For 4000 Miles I'm drawing as much on my memory of my own mother with the grandkids. She was glorious.