It's nice to work with Hollywood because there is never any question of resources put at your disposal to make a film as long as it is the right thing to do.

Is it fair to have given us the memory of what was and the desire of what could be when we must suffer what is?

The most difficult thing is the organization of people and the expression of your intentions. It's very easy to have a picture in your head and to imagine that you've told everybody about what you need.

I don't think we have enough imaginary creatures in cinema. It seems like we're stuck with zombies, vampires, and werewolves. We should have everything. We should have minotaurs. We should have elves. We should have mermen in popular culture. But instead we've stuck with vampires.

The whole Ireland was taken over by greed and materialism. It was extraordinary. The price of every house had skyrocketed. If you were a small farmer and you had two fields outside, if you built 17 bungalows on them all, you become a millionaire, that kind of thing. It was extraordinary to see how rapidly that kind of ethic takes over a whole culture, but that's what's happened to us since the year 1998, about. It's completely extraordinary how little regard the culture had for the landscape. The country is now full of these half-built industrial parks and hotels.

Never make a promise - you may have to keep it.

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