When I'm in northern Italy, I walk about feeling slightly less of a freak.

The great news is that that sort of group of people and that sort of sensibility is beginning to become more active again. And I think partly it just has to do with the time. It has to do with the culture of resistance. The necessity is for us to pull together and to speak up and to make work and be visible.

Art is good for my soul precisely because it reminds me that we have souls in the first place.

What very often happens when people make films about rich people, the camera is quite mesmerised by the opulence and quite theatrical in fact.

We [ with Ewan McGregor] decided exactly what we would do at every moment, what the texture would be.

Working with the editor on the set means that it is possible to keep track, at every moment, of the exact temperature of the trajectory of the scene - and know precisely what is required to continue, or precede, the action already shot. Like building a giant jigsaw puzzle. This is a freeing procedure because one is divested of all the options that might otherwise hamper one's choices. Clarity is possible. And that means one can relax into each shot, knowing the clear boundaries of where it might end or begin. And with relaxation, comes play.

I always think of the word 'abandonment' when I think of the character.