When you first fall in love it's so thrilling, you can't wait to throw yourself away and make this new wonderful twosome.

The studio system is kind of an old boys system and it's difficult for them to trust women to be capable

I feel that directors at times are like the janitors on the set. I am the secretary, I am the organizer, I am the maid, and I ask if they have eaten or rested. The best things are always out of your control. It's those moments that surpass the imagination that are thrilling.

Performers are so vulnerable. They're frightened of humiliation, sure their work will be crap. I try to make an environment where it's warm, where it's OK to fail - a kind of home, I suppose.

This is the first generation to grow up on Thatcher - it's a different ethos. It's money minded, and it's the cult of yourself. Now that's fine, except when it falls down, and you can't achieve your goals - through high unemployment, through the fact that you probably need inherited money to get anywhere.

If you read Keats's poems, they're often full of doubts and anxieties. They can be quite tough.

I'm a much better filmmaker than painter. But studying it did make me visually acute and taught me lessons like being economic: Say something once and you don't have to say it again.