Without In The Company of Men, I could still be teaching, so who knows if this would've existed.

We humans are a fairly barbarous bunch.

We live in a disposable society. It's easier to throw things out than to fix them. We even give it a name - we call it recycling.

I think Christine and Chad are on the opposite extremes of the spectrum. Christine is a model victim, and Chad is a model perpetrator, and Howard is closer to the middle.

There were certain things that I watched, and I screened a series of period films as well, not because I wanted to copy those, because I wanted to be different. “Far from the Madding Crowd” was one I looked to because I thought it looked so good. “Doctor Zhivago.” Unrequited love is always a great thing. “Tess” was something I looked at, I thought Polanski got the period right.

It's funny how that comes up, because sometimes I'll write something and I'll think, I don't know if that's a film or a play, and then other things I feel very strongly about them just being plays - they feel very theatrical to me.

I would be more frightened as a writer if people thought my movies were like science fiction.