If I was American, I think I'd live in New York, because I like that East Coast mentality. There's nothing wrong with Hollywood. If you want to be a big time filmmaker, you should go to Hollywood.

It's a good place when all you have is hope and not expectations.

I kind of call myself an atheist, I suppose - although quite a spiritual atheist, I hope.

My dad was a labourer and my mum had exactly the same job as Noel Gallagher's mum - she was a dinner lady at our local school. Everyone comes over from Ireland and they get the same jobs.

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

Everybody expects you to be qualified to talk about your films, but in a way, you're the least qualified person to talk about them. When you're finished, you don't watch them at all.

Your first film is always your best film, in a way. There's something about your first film that you never ever get back to, but you should always try. It's that slight sense of not knowing what you're doing, because the technical skills you learn - especially if you have a film that works, that has some kind of success - are beguiling. The temptation is to use them again, and they're not necessarily good storytelling techniques.