I've always been a fiction filmmaker and I've been heading in the direction of fiction filmmaking, doing documentaries along the way.

Why is nobody questioning the sanity or suicidal tendencies of Everest ascenders? It's kind of a question of framing: How do you frame these activities? We frame them as freedom-loving, exciting, progressing sports and they are. But there are other ways to frame it. It's also true that these young men, neurologists say that their frontal lobes aren't developed yet - the long-term planning part of the brain.

I love my work, apart from when it's driving me crazy. But I get to be interested in stuff and think like a filmmaker as I'm buzzing about the world and then see an opportunity to make a film, and then make it happen.

My main trick is to work with amazing people. It's a long and twisty journey and you need people that really are amazing and have this rare gift of honesty and courage and really open up.

I am riveted by extreme sports like big-wave surfing, 'megaramp' skateboarding and half pipe snowboarding. I am fascinated partly because the sports are so exhilaratingly acrobatic. But I am also captivated by the fear that a terrible accident might happen at any moment. And accidents do happen.

I have always been interested in garbage: What it says about us. What in there embarrasses us, and what we can't bear to part with. Where it goes and how much of it there is. How it endures. What it might be like to work with it every day.

Some documentaries are made by people who are driven more by one particular story, or have different backgrounds or ambitions, but I'm always looking for projects that let me be the best filmmaker I can be, and to be stretched and grow further.