Anything which retains interest is optimistic. When the characters become disinterested, it's pessimistic. Does that make sense?

In anything really, it's finding the reality. You can't be 'real,' but you can create a reality. And that created reality is what the audience believes in. And that's essential. Because if the audience doesn't believe that, they're never going to trust you. And if they don't trust you, you can't lead them up the mountain.

One wonders sometimes, looking at the world, how it's dealing with itself. There are days when you wake up and you feel very optimistic and there are days when you feel pessimistic.

Anything which retains interest is optimistic. When the characters become disinterested, it's pessimistic. Does that make sense?

[Alfred] Hitchcock was very interested in the image on the screen.As is any good cinema director. That is the language they speak. It is not literature, it is images on screen.

Also the wonderful thing about film, you can see light at the end of the tunnel. You did realize that it is going to come to an end at some stage.

I loved working with [ Lars Von Trier], but I've done two films before, so I was quite used to him.He's a man of incredible moods of course, but he's also a hugely perceptive man, and there's no getting away from that. And he's able to put that perception into something like film, so we're very lucky.