I believe that a creative career is only as good as the risks that you take with it.

I think you need to have a healthy sense of doubt because I think doubt leads to inquiry.

When you're directing something, you absolutely have to be involved in all layers of the process.

Every director works differently.

It was fantastic to be able to have my kids on set. Dash, my eldest son, who’s not quite five, was into knights and his godmother had given him a plastic Marks & Spencer knights’ outfit and [first assistant director] Tommy Gormley said that he could stand to protect me during the scene where Clive [Owen] is talking about the immensity of sitting on the throne. I’m actually looking through an archway at my son standing in his knights’ costume protecting me!

Someone might have a germ of talent, but 90 percent of it is discipline and how you practice it, what you do with it. ... Instinct won't carry you through the entire journey. It's what you do in the moments between inspiration.

I'm not sitting on a soapbox telling women what they should and shouldn't do, but I know what works for me.