To force yourself out of the comfort zone, the main ingredient is trying to work in a world where you haven't been before, that you don't know the rules of. And that involves a lot of research, so you begin to see where the other people have been, but you are starting from as vulnerable and as low a point as possible.

I've sort of escaped my background, as people often do, through art and culture.

If you have to be persuaded about something, you shouldn't do it.

The awards season gives a chance for independent films to have a bit of longevity in the press and the media.

If the American taxpayer knew how much they paid per person to put Neil Armstrong on the moon they would never have paid it. It was hidden from them deliberately because the costs were astronomical.

We want to see drama told in a cathartic way, with power, with emotion where you empathize and then you're frightened. All those feelings charge up in you and you feel for the story.

Originally I'm a big pop-music aficionado, that's my love.