I have always believed that there is a need for life-affirming films.

Of course, like all film-makers I've been mesmerised by cinema since I was a child.

My grandmother was a huge influence on me and the fact that there was this very strong, rather formidable presence of women in my life has been an enormous value.

Waiting is part of writing. When I write the word 'waiting' by hand it even looks like 'writing.'

The BFI exists to celebrate all poets of world cinema, of the past and present.

The feeling of not belonging, of not being entirely worthy, of being sometimes hostage to your own sensibilities. Those things speak to me very personally.

There's this sense of being strange, which is at the heart of every creative person. Every writer, every actor, every director knows who Ripley is. We've made careers and lives out of pretending, making things up, inhabiting other people's stories and lives. That's what I do every day. . . . The story is so audacious and subversive: a central character who behaves badly and isn't apparently caught. That intrigued me no end.