The way an actor is trained doesn't ultimately have much bearing on my work. I'm interested in the actor as artist.

I really think people are greatly stimulated and enriched by experiencing in film just as we can from novels and other art, experiencing things that resonate with what our lives are about. I think people really want to know... want to share, want to have the stimulus to think and care about the way they live their lives, the way they relate to other people, their aspirations, their hopes, et cetera.

The reason my films work is because every actor on set is very secure. They're able to fly.

I feel very much ideologically, politically if you like, and emotionally part of the European cinema.

Life is about luck and it's about circumstances and socioeconomic conditions and all the rest of it, but you know, you can also make choices. It's about spirit and generosity and all the other things, too.

But films should be voyeuristic. What else is a film if you’re not snooping into somebody else’s lives?

Very occasionally I hire an actor and get it wrong. The actor just doesn't trust the process or me as fully as I thought they would. In this case, you can be quite sure that if an actor is untrusting, it's got nothing to do with me or the process.