Day Out

My passion is hanging out in coffee shops - there are some great ones in Newcastle, where I grew up. My ideal is actually to own a coffee shop because I spend so much of my life in them. If I'm going on a location scout, I always try to base it around coffee shops. There's a great place, the Cafe Procope, down on the quayside. I think the quayside is one of the most interesting city areas in the whole of England. It's got really steep streets with old buildings and the Tyne bridge going over the top. It really doesn't look like you expect Newcastle to look - people have an image of a bleak industrial city but it looks more like Paris. There's another great cafe called Heartbreak Soup. It's really cool, full of young people. Whenever the RSC goes on tour all the young actors descend on it and spend all night there. It was Jimmy Nail's favourite coffee shop in Spender. It's situated between a couple of cool pubs.

If I had a free day, I'd drive up the coast to Linder's Farm, which is also called Holy Island, one of the most beautiful places on the coast in Britain. It's joined to the mainland by a causeway. Polanski shot Cul-de-Sac there and I'm hoping to shoot there next year. You can do the whole island in a couple of hours. It has the most excellent castle, built on a pinnacle of rock. There's a brilliant fish and chip shop in Seahouses. I don't really like clubs, I'd rather drink more coffee. In the evening I'd either go to the Gateshead cinema for the multiplex experience or the Tyneside cinema. It has undoubtedly my favourite coffee shop in the whole of Newcastle, it's art deco and the walls are covered with pictures from the movies.

Paul Anderson is director of 'Shopping' on general release