It's important to be true to the events, but the most important thing is to get to the essence of the experience. Not to be bogged down in an academic way by a notion of the truth. First of all, the truth is an illusive and spurious concept.

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

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.

It creeps up on you and becomes an obsession. It comes out of watching a million movies.

I make films because I am endlessly fascinated by people. I'm fascinated immediately to know about the lives that are going on around me. That is what drives me. And that is because everybody matters, everybody is there to be cared about, everybody is interesting and everybody is the potential central character in a story. Judging people is not acceptable.

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

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