I think if there's some kind of crisis in news journalism... a crisis of credibility, then it's been created by journalists. I'm empathetic, I understand it and I see it, but I'm not sympathetic about it. If you want people to think of journalism with higher regard then do better work.

I want to make movies that pierce people's hearts and touch them in some way, even if it's just for the night while they're in the cinema; in that moment, I want to bring actual tears to their eyes and goosebumps to their skin.

I'd move to Los Angeles if New Zealand and Australia were swallowed up by a tidal wave, if there was a bubonic plague in England and if the continent of Africa disappeared from some Martian attack.

I don't know if I was ever looking for this kind of success- it came along as a by-product of concentrating on what I was doing.

Anyway, I'm doing my rave and this spittle comes out of my mouth and it winds its way very delicately through the wire fence that separates us and lands clear and bright on Denzel's lip. And we're at the beginning of the scene and I've got to do the rest of the scene, and the camera isn't on him, it's on me - and I'm fully aware that I've just spat on Denzel Washington!

My definition [of genius] would be about being completely involved in your art form. So that's outside of sciences. Within the arts it's about taking people on a journey, being able to involve me completely-whether you're singing a song, whether it's in the theater, whether you're dancing-if you can make me forget I'm sitting in a seat, that's my definition of genius.

If there's anything about someone's life that's important enough to make a movie about it, I have to take responsibility to get all of it right. It's a huge responsibility.