I am not a politics wonk. I like the idea of my writing reflecting more about who I am or other people.

There's no way of telling why you want to do things beforehand. Something just grabs you. It might not grab you six months later, and it might not have grabbed you six months before, but at that particular moment it grabs you, so you jump on it.

There are so many other people involved in the making of a play or a television series or whatever... even if you're a novelist there's so much in just the marketing of a book, or even the time... the zeitgeist, the moment at which it comes out. There's a lot you can't control.

As we go through life our relationship with our own mortality and our inevitable demise increases.

I wrote 'Hereafter' quickly and without mapping it out too much or being too schematic. As an exercise, I think that was incredibly important.

You're working with other people and sometimes it doesn't work out the way you want, and sometimes you didn't realise what a mistake you've made until you see it projected.

Having a phone call from Steven Spielberg was just a fantastic rite of passage. I loved it, and he was very focused, very likable, strictly business, and really sharp.