I think language is the most important thing that human beings have ever accomplished, and the only thing that's really going to get us all out of the troubles that we find ourselves in.

I think when you're trying to produce a relationship on screen that doesn't actually exist, perhaps sometimes there's a temptation to look at each other more, to touch each other more...

Actors can be many things - vain, venal, self-serving, obnoxious, bullies - but all of the good ones are great storytellers. I wanted to watch what my actors were doing and how they were telling the story.

People have suggested that perhaps we are too affluent to be telling this story, which is amazing to me because then I wonder what story I am allowed to tell. Having been working with the homeless for the past years, I noticed lots of things about them, but one thing I really noticed was that they were probably too busy just getting though the day to make a film about themselves.

The only thing I think I can be accused of about paparazzi is being really naive. I didnt think about it coming along with the job and I never, during my three years at drama school, fantasized about one bit of it.

I wanted to know as the director how the actors wanted to tell this story I wanted to know what they thought.

I really like telling stories. When I was a kid, I wanted to write songs. In quite a fundamental, gratifying, childish way, I enjoy the doing of telling a story.