I'm not really a happy person. It's a question of temperament. I have a tendency toward melancholy. You can feel quite happily melancholic.

I love actors, both my parents were actors, and the work with actors is the most enjoyable part of making a film. It's important that they feel protected and are confident they won't be betrayed. When you create that atmosphere of trust, it's in the bag - the actors will do everything to satisfy you.

The smaller and younger kids are, the more patient you have to be. But if they're gifted, then it's a wonderful present that you're given by having a child like that in your film... more so than in the case of actors because, for example, if you ask them to play a lion, they don't then play a lion, they actually are a lion. So, a gifted child is something very special. On the other hand, if a child has no gifts in that way it's absolutely hopeless and there's nothing you can do!

I think that religion is an integral part of human needs, but the question also is how you understand religion.

I never suffered from the absence of a father. On the contrary, as a child I was more inclined to see men as a disturbing factor. It made things difficult for me when I started working as a director.

If someone's lying to us, then it's rare that we know that they're lying to us. It's only in bad films that you recognize immediately that an actor's playing in such a way that you can see that he's lying, and that's simply dumb. But to reach that, it requires that you make a film in such a way that a spectator feels compelled to find his own explanation. You want to lead the spectator to find his own interpretation. To ask questions rather than provide all of the answers. Doing that leads to open endings and open dramaturgy.

At its best, film should be like a ski jump. It should give the viewer the option of taking flight, while the act of jumping is left up to him.