There is a different kind of vulnerability when a woman is directing

I love it when actors come to you with a problem and you have to listen. You'd like them to just get on with it, but it often means that there's a problem with the script.

Eight years ago, I was drawn into Keats's world by Andrew Motion's biography. Soon I was reading back and forth between Keats's letters and his poems. The letters were fresh, intimate and irreverent, as though he were present and speaking. The Keats spell went very deep for me.

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 Piano Lesson' is very sophisticated, easily the most adult or complex material I've attempted. It's the first film I've written that has a proper story, and it was a big struggle for me to write. It meant I had to admit the power of narrative.

I think the whole tension about romanticism is the way it builds and builds, and the moment it's consummated, the tension's over.

I seem to have been able to make a career out of doing what I feel like doing, so why not keep doing it? What's corrupting is wanting to be more important. You want to be more arty - you get your identity from that. Or you get your identity out of making more money.