Well, if you're talking about the current climate, there's a lack of content in American film because I think people are deeply confused about their emotions, and they don't regret certain aspects of their own foreign policy.

Well, I suppose I'm interested in ways of storytelling and in stories that are about storytelling.

And I think I often choose to do something because it's quite different from what I've done before.

If movies have to satisfy every possible quadrant before they're even made, they're dull. You only get great things when people overreach themselves.

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 took two years away from making films to write a novel.

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