It's a luxury to be able to tell a long form story. I love novels, and I love to have a long relationship with characters.

If you start with a good idea, you can encapsulate it in a phrase and explain it. I like high-concept films. Everyone can get hold of it. I don't think there's any harm in that at all.

Tragedy makes you grow up.

I had this spooky psychological thing about 'The Piano' before it began, which was how everybody was going to go nuts on the set. Because a film tends to set up the way people are going to behave.

I didn't like England. I couldn't take the look of the place or the style of friendship. I need more intimacy from people than is considered okay there, and I felt that my personality and my enthusiasms weren't understood. I had to put a big lid on myself.

So many actors are not open in front of the camera - they have a persona.

I don't belong to any clubs, and I dislike club mentality of any kind, even feminism - although I do relate to the purpose and point of feminism. More in the work of older feminists, really, like Germaine Greer.