I'm less comfortable making American movies because I don't know them so well.

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

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

Initially with The Butcher Boy, there was this kid growing up in this strange, weird environment that I remember from when I was a kid. And Patrick's vision was so complete there.

My conception of it was that in a normal film you have a story with different movements that program, develop, go a little bit off the trunk, come back, and end.

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

I don't know why anybody would come to Ireland chasing a dream or even employment - that's an extraordinary thing for a place where traditionally one was unemployed. For 10 years, people were coming from all over the world looking for employment here, kind of an extraordinary phenomenon. That's stopped now.