When people approach me about my films it is usually to tell me how much they hate them.

From my experience working with comedians, there is that competitive aspect. With actors, for instance, they don't want to look competitive even if they are, whereas comedians, I think, are openly happy to play on the idea that they all compete with each other to get the laughs. There's something about comedy, I think, that encourages that. There's this kind of schoolboy sense of wanting to top the other person that we play off of to show them competing for who's smarter or cleverer.

When people approach me about my films it is usually to tell me how much they hate them.

When you start being enthusiastic about whatever it is you like, that is the golden age for you.

A lot of the aspects of the world of the film are amalgams of things that already exist.

When you're working with a script and you have three pages for that day, you have to shoot that. It can become sort of like a prison, because by the time you've shot what you need to shoot, you don't really have time to think or shoot anything else.

If you make a film set in London or in Pakistan or wherever, the thing that interests me is the relationships between individuals - individuals and society, individuals and their family, their girlfriend or boyfriend, it's all the same idea.