I think it's always hard for people to get their head around the fact that populist, commercial films can also actually be great works of art.

I have to say, without sounding like a total tosser, that everything I've learned in life, and that has taken me out of my natural interior life, has been with men. They exposed me to things that I wasn't aware of. I learned from all the guys.

What's great in the modern world is that it's becoming easier and easier for people to create without having access to large sums of money. They need access to certain technologies, but the cost is far less than it used to be.

I feel the written word, poetry and literature is just one of the most beautiful things that human beings do. So we have to fight for it.

Women have got to stop being polite. If I ever had children, which I don't, the first thing I'd teach a girl of mine is the words 'f - off.'

Where you grew up becomes a big part of who you are for the rest of your life. You can't run away from that. Well, sometimes the running away from it is what makes you who you are.

It'll be the Internet and piracy that will kill film. There's a philosophy that the Internet should be free, but the reality is that piracy will destroy the film industry and film as an art form because it's expensive to make a movie. Maybe you'll have funky little independent movies, and it'll go back and then start up again some other way.