I would like to break out of this "dark, brooding" image, cause I'm actually not like that at all. In Ireland, brooding is a term we use for hens. A brooding hen is supposed to lay eggs. Everytime somebody says "He's dark and brooding" I think: "He's about to lay an egg".

The only way you can continue to make artistic films is to make an occasional one of those. They kind of keep your marketability going to the extent that people will employ you.

I still cannot fathom how difficult it was for the women I met to find out that they were HIV-positive. It is such a courageous undertaking in countries where there is still considerable stigma about the disease. They got tested to ensure that their unborn babies would have a chance of life by being born free of the virus.

Nobody knows anybody. Not that well.

A completely disrespectful photographer was asked to stop taking photographs, and then said, 'I've got what I want. What are you going to do about it?' How would you feel if somebody walked up and started taking your photograph? I don't think you'd be very happy.

It was either Voltaire or Charlie Sheen who said, 'We are born alone. We live alone. We die alone. And anything in between that can give us the illusion that we're not, we cling to.'

Presents don't really mean much to me. I don't want to sound mawkish, but - it was the realization that I have a great many people in my life who really love me, and who I really love.