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.

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.

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

I can't imagine people telling me what to do - I just can't imagine it.

As for how criticism of Keats' poetry relates to criticism of my own work, I'll leave that for others to decide.

But I think it's quite clear in my work that my orientation isn't political or doesn't come out of modern politics.

I think that the romantic impulse is in all of us and that sometimes we live it for a short time, but it's not part of a sensible way of living. It's a heroic path and it generally ends dangerously. I treasure it in the sense that I believe it's a path of great courage. It can also be the path of the foolhardy and the compulsive.