To be a great director, what does it mean exactly? It's not only about a great director, but also about being able to rely on the very special chemistry that goes between them. It not only has to be a great director, but the great director has to make his relationship to you, the actor, very special.

You don't want to cry over yourself, you don't want to have compassion about yourself. It's not the right place.

When I hear myself, I don't know how I sound.

I never had any barriers coming from my family. Just encouragement.

But it wasn't just a technical approach towards the piano, studying the music for this film was also a way of approaching the soul of the film, because the film is really about the soul of Schubert and the soul of Bach.

If on paper one would say, "You're gonna spend three weeks in Death Valley," you say, "No, I'm not going to be able to." Very often, very quickly you forget about it.

Even for the most difficult scenes, and there are difficult scenes in the film, and because Michael Haneke is such a great film-maker - I think a great film-maker is not only being inspired, but how to do it, how to make it as real as possible, knowing that it's not real.