In the 1930s, in boxing, to be the heavyweight champion of the world was really, really big, people wanted to see the toughest guys. But what I've figured out now, in the '50s, '60s, boxing started to become more entertainment than sport.
Boxing is a dying sport, really. Years ago, the world heavyweight champion could be said to have reached the highest pinnacle of sport. Even in this country, boxers were heroes. Think of Henry Cooper and Frank Bruno.
Boxing is a sport, but it's also entertainment. I wanted to transcend the sport and be considered just not as a fighter, or a champion, but someone very special.
I had to start boxing because I missed working on something and learning and I guess there's a little more aggression in boxing. I couldn't really get that side of me out, but I used to be able to by hitting a volleyball. That's why I started boxing.
If I can be heavyweight champion of boxing, I have to try. That is why I want to train myself in professional boxing.
For me, it was very important to be part of a boxing film that actually explores the psychological aspects of the sport, more than just the physical aspects. I haven't seen boxing movies very often that really go so deep into the minds of the boxers. It really puts out how much it is about strategy and tactics and technique.
Throughout the history of the sport, the heavyweight champion has been... a reason to talk about boxing at the water cooler.
When I started boxing, people laughed at me and said, 'What can women do in boxing?' I took it as a challenge. If men can do it, why can't women? And I became a world champion before my marriage.
Boxing is not coming back. There's not going to be a new Ali or a new Tyson. What's happened to movies is happening to boxing-that is, too much availability of alternative, similar entertainment. Movies started to become diluted with the advent of television; that has been mirrored by the dilution of boxing, with kickboxing and absolute, extreme homicidal fighting.
When you start boxing when you're 7 years old, that's your dream, to become world champion, and after that you want to become something bigger than world champion.
In the '60s when I started to see everything I could see, you could see pretty much everything which was still available from the '30s, '40s, '50s, '60s, and therefore I had an education which was really large and vast in different cinema. That's probably the reason I did not fall for the New Wave. It's really the love of the movies that made me want to become a cameraperson, definitely. I was really a film buff.
I would love to be the undisputed welterweight champion of the world - that's always been the big dream - but outside of that, it really just makes me happy whenever somebody approaches me and they say, 'You are truly one of my favorite fighters in the sport of boxing today.'
I made an instant connection with boxing right away. Boxing became such a part of me. I ate boxing, I slept boxing, I lived boxing. Boxing was a way of expressing myself because I was not that outspoken.
I never started in boxing to be a British champion or a world champion. There are loads of world champions in Britain, and if you mention them to someone out there on the street, nobody knows who they are.
Boxing is the toughest and loneliest sport in the world.
I love boxing. I really respect the guys and admire the guys who do it. But, I'm very, very happy with my career as an actor. I made the right choice and things are really working out for me right now, but I won't pretend that there isn't a part of me that always secretly wanted to be a boxer.
Every day as a kid, I went to the boxing gym. I knew boxing before I knew anything else. And I was once told if you show your child how to do something and you constantly push them, then eventually they'll become masters. They'll become a master of their craft. So that's probably what happened with me and the sport of boxing.