The shifts happen on a regular basis, but it's like a cycle. So things come in and out of vogue and then five years later they're back in vogue. Or there seems to be a theory that this is the way the industry will go and everybody goes over that way and then something happens to the country and you're back again at the place you were.

The writer Richard Curtis is a genius.

For me, I can't tell you if the film is good or bad, all I can say is for me the film is way better than I had expectation of us being able to make. So for me that's the most important thing. Have we exceeded our dream in terms of what it could be?

In terms of putting the cast together, no problems. You know, the only problem always is just price-point. Our ambitions as we get older, all of us, is to try and do more.

The idea that the Tony committee and the New York theater community as a whole have embraced Billy Elliot is very, very exciting.

Something like small English films were in vogue you had something like The Crying Game and everyone piled into London and wanted to make small English movies.

I think everyone's going to really try to keep costs down. The more you keep costs down, the more freedom you have creatively. I can protect my filmmakers from any form of creative interference, be it from anywhere, if we're all acting in a responsible way and making the pain of a failure be as little as possible.