In Dreams...well, I was slightly overcompensating with that. I was a bit like a director for hire, so maybe I was putting too much imagery that was familiar to me into it.

In Dreams...well, I was slightly overcompensating with that. I was a bit like a director for hire, so maybe I was putting too much imagery that was familiar to me into it.

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.

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.

For example, the character of Claire in In Dreams wasn't imagined enough by me. Annette Bening is a great actress, and she gave a great performance, but because I hadn't fully written it essentially the character wasn't finished.

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

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.