I've long since stopped worrying about how I'm portrayed in the press because ultimately it's not that important. Everyone who knows me knows I do what I do with the greatest integrity.

I'm developing the stuff all the time. There's a film in my head. I'm imagining a film.

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

My work is about life as you and I experience it. You're either lucky or you're not lucky; either your relationship works or it doesn't.

I have to get out of bed every day to make something happen.

I grew up looking at... going to the movies a lot, as much as they'd let you. I grew up in Manchester in the north of England in the '40s and '50s. I saw a lot of movies. They were all Hollywood and British movies. I didn't see a film that wasn't in English until I was 17 when I went to London to be a student.

The kind of acting that's wholly literary or cerebral is wrong. It's useless for me to have actors so much in their heads that they can't be organic.