Sometimes you have to confront your demons and sometimes even let them loose to genuinely find a place where you can gain some understanding.

Just in relation to women, it's not that huge an imaginative leap to see the connection between the Taliban and the Catholic Church.

Filmmaking is something I have to do. It's not something I particularly want to do.

If I'm at home on my own and the writing isn't going well, I clean my house. And there have been times in the past few years when my house has looked really clean.

It's not so much that I want to direct but that I have to. When I write something it terrifies me that if I give it to someone else and it doesn't turn out as it could have done, I'd feel as if I'd orphaned my baby.

I love acting. It's the one job I know of where you can go in, go through complete catharsis - emotionally, physically sometimes and mentally - and at the end of the day say, 'See you in the pub, guys.

In the acting game, you spend a long time fighting against what the director perceives you to be. And half the time the directors don't know.