The two real leads in 'Children of Men' are Clive Owen and the social environment. You know, this same movie without the social environment maybe is just like a generic chase movie.

I've been very lucky in that the studios really respect me and they give me all my creative freedom. But nevertheless, they are inputs, they have opinions. It's the same thing for me as if you're in a shower and you're coming up with a tune, with a melody, but there are 70 people trying to sing their own melody at the same time. So you have to focus and concentrate, and not lose the track of your melody.

The two real leads in 'Children of Men' are Clive Owen and the social environment. You know, this same movie without the social environment maybe is just like a generic chase movie.

I really believe there is the possibility of something great that can happen in the right hands.

I think it is something that is so important, to be very aware of the direction in which the 21st century is going with all this blind faith in democracy. And by the way, I am not against democracy - I am against the blind faith that is being put in democracy.

I used to be very controlling with visuals and editing, and I would pretty much craft the performances; now I have learned to trust the material and the actors.

You can write a whole fiction, and you're talking to people who have gone through that, in real life. But the truth of it is that when you're talking to those people, you don't care about your movie anymore. You just want to hear about what they have gone through. You want all of the details. It's amazing.