Consciousness is the original sin: consciousness of the inevitability of our death.

The problem with doing a schlocky or big budget studio film is that it wouldn't actually be fun for me. It wouldn't be exciting.

The filmmaking process is a very personal one to me, I mean it really is a personal kind of communication. It's not as though its a study of fear or any of that stuff.

Let's put it this way, when I was casting, I cast Viggo first and then found someone who could play his wife, rather than the other way around. So for me he's still the lead character.

Anybody who comes to the cinema is bringing they're whole sexual history, their literary history, their movie literacy, their culture, their language, their religion, whatever they've got. I can't possibly manipulate all of that, nor do I want to.

For example I don't work with William Hurt the same way that I will work with Viggo. They're different guys and they work in different ways. So a good sensitive director has his general style and technique and personality that he uses but you don't impose that on the actors.

So not only can you not imagine dying, you can't really imagine existence before you were born.