I am atheist in a very religious mould. I'm always asking myself the big questions. Where did we come from? Is there a meaning to all of this? I read the King James Bible, as all English writers should. And when I find myself in church, I edit the hymns as I sing them.

And this shows that sometimes people want to be stupid and they do not want to know the truth.

I think one of the things you have to learn if you're going to create believable characters is never to make generalizations about groups of people.

I have very fond memories of swimming in Walden Pond when we lived in Boston. You'd swim past a log and see all these turtles sunning themselves. Slightly disturbing if you thought about how many more were swimming around your toes, but also rather wonderful.

Mother used to say it meant Christopher was a nice name because it was a story about being kind and helpful, but I do not want my name to mean a story about being kind and helpful. I want my name to mean me.

I think I've learnt that there is no character so strange that you haven't shared their experience in some small way.

You make a film you feel is as real as possible and hope people react as though it were real.