There's no point in making a film out of a great book. The book's already great. What's the point?

I hoped that grief was similar to the other emotions. That it would end, the way happiness did. Or laughter.

Ireland is becoming like everywhere else, but that's the one I grew up in: the one that's hugely illogical. Rather wonderful, in a way. I never found this oppression of religion and that, but I did enjoy growing up in a culture that didn't need to be rational all of the time.

I mean I grew up in Ireland, so one would have to be consciously blinkered not to have reflected on the issue of political violence because that was the story since I was 19 years old or 20.

For me, the filmmaking has to be about the dramaturgy.

But everyone gets burnt, don't they? Certain things are outside of your control. I suppose the only thing you can learn as a director is to not put yourself into situations where it can get outside of your control. And that's what happened.

It is extremely difficult to get movies that cost more than $40 million to be made these days.