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.

There are some things that are real, that you can see, that you can observe, like the moon, and grass and things. But for ideas to become real, they have to be played on your senses.

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.

Between 18 and 26 I acted professionally, on the stage and a little bit on television. Acting is okay, but it's quite pressurized. Then I went to England - I wanted to reinvent myself.

I think women don't grow up with the harsh world of criticism that men grow up with, we are more sensitively treated, and when you first experience the world of film-making you have to develop a very tough skin.

That's just how I see things on a base level: there's so much going on. Or at least I like to have that feeling. It's part of being interested in notions of reality apart from storytelling. I don't know if it has something to do with having an art school education, which makes you aware of the way visuals speak, or makes you trust them more.