The stuff that I have perhaps become known for that's based on fact, and English statesmen shouting at each other all the time, doesn't entirely represent who I am. I am not a politics wonk.

I don't want to direct. I have no directing ambition whatsoever. And as long as I meet filmmakers like Tom Hooper, Stephen Frears, and others who allow that collaboration, I can't see why I would ever want to direct.

The real beauty in my professional experience has been friendships and collaborations with filmmakers.

I can't relax when I'm watching a biographical drama, because it's so close to what it is that I do that I just long for more fiction - so that I can switch off.

When you make a choice as a writer about what it is you want to write, and what it is you're going to spend six months thinking about, you have to fall in love.

I never go back over something I've done and I never watch them again.

I had no intention of providing any answers or solutions, because you'd only look a fool, but I did want to talk about what it's like to be in a state where you're wondering. And perhaps I was also receptive to the fact I was entering middle age and those thoughts come - to pretend that they don't come is just crazy.