Every writer has to make an emotional journey from artist sitting in attic to being part of a business. The writer of a film is like Tinkerbell. You are only there because people believe in you. The moment they dont, because youre a pain the arse, youve lost.

My childhood was a happy one, spent in a tall house in South Kensington and later in East Sussex, but my early and mid teens were less successful.

Success means your thoughts are worthy of everyones consideration.

I can be as contrary as I choose.

I think it's always a challenge to adapt something from one medium to another - a novel into a film or a play into a movie or whatever.

Sometimes the weekend gets hijacked by work, but as my mother would say, this is the right problem.

I'm seen as a chronicler of the class system, which I don't think is unfair.