You go through a process of refinement and getting rid of the excesses of your early youth in terms of your excitement about what theatre can do.

Actually, to be honest, this is a useful time to not be knowing what I'll be doing in 2013 or 2014, because really, for the last however many years, I've known what I've been doing for years and years ahead. You get into a cycle of non-reflection, and that gets a bit scary.

I'm a theatre person, that's who I am. I'm happy to make sojourns into the world of movies but I'm basically a theatre director that potters off and does a couple of movies.

Is it appropriate still for a German to have a gun? I only use that as an example of a country that's still deeply involved and engaged in the conversations about how to come to terms with the past. Certainly for that country, it's not forgotten.

With journalism, films always have to be to do with some personal statement of your own. As a general rule, I resist that. In the States, a question that kept coming up was this: how can you, as a man, talk about three women?

At school, I decided I wanted to be a director and then I went out and spent the rest of my adult life trying to be a director. It was really clear to me. So in that sense I was very lucky.

I have never been motivated by money in my life. You can't make choices based on what the financial return might be.