You've got to play what people think you are, rather than what you are. You have to have a sense of what you are as you're playing what people think you are.

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.

It's the opposite journey from what I've usually done with films. I find it very easy to go from, say, a lit, pleasurable environment, like what you see outside there, to a very dark place. But the opposite journey, which is what this movie takes, is much more complicated.

For me now, it's about what you would write and what you wouldn't write, and that's how I select what I am going to do. It can be quite nice being brought a concept by a studio for me to work on.

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.

The truth is that seals look more like dogs. And I'm surrounded by seals because I live by the sea. They're odd bloody creatures. Not fish, they don't have gills, they should have legs, but they don't. They're the weirdest things, you know?

The great thing about fairy tales and myths is that they go beyond character. They're not about character. They're about more basic things. They're about basic fears or longings or desires or fantasies, and stuff like that.