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.

We always had the idea that there might be two slightly different versions of the same thing.

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.

I think it would be impossible if you had a name like mine not to get a little flack for it.

I still enjoy watching films more than making them.

There's a lot of ridiculous hypocrisy about sex in films today. And that's one of the reasons why I made 9 Songs, to say, "Why can't you put sex in a film?"

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