Across all Cinderella versions it was clear that the 21st century was not very much in evidence, particularly in the character of Cinderella so it seemed, it felt actually as though it hadn't been done for quite some time, not with the kind of lushness that we could do it with, with an absolute removal of the passivity of Cinderella and finding an amusing way, a lighthearted but significant way of making her proactive and not a girl who's life is about waiting for a bloke.

Somehow I know there was something so right about my doing Frankenstein and taking so long over it that I've probably been laying some ghost inside myself. It was a very necessary job for me to do, but it'll take some time to recover from it.

The best actors, I think, have a childlike quality. They have a sort of an ability to lose themselves. There's still some silliness.

I'm just a foul-mouthed Brit.

I feel more Irish than English. I feel freer than British, more visceral, with a love of language. Shot through with fire in some way. That's why I resist being appropriated as the current repository of Shakespeare on the planet. That would mean I'm part of the English cultural elite, and I am utterly ill-fitted to be.

We're self obsessed and mad and stupid - not that other people can't be the same way - but the extremes are kind of honest in some mad way. Anyway, I like them.

I think that a lot of exciting elements are finding a place where a film is happily, truly about something.