It's really a lovely feeling to write knowing that failure is taken off the table because if it's bad you just never show it to anyone.

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.

The minute you become a leader of a country, you go into a very small club. You join that sort of pantheon of other world leaders.

Sometimes you are lucky enough to get offered things and there is no rhyme or reason.

I just try and do something good. But as a writer, you're slightly out of control.

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

I give everything my best shot and sometimes it doesn't work out and other times it works out much better than you thought.