Derek Jarman shared the responsibility for making the film. He didn't necessarily know what he wanted - he knew what he didn't want - but you had to keep coming up with stuff.

I think there's a dishonorable tradition in Hollywood to give the idea, particularly to children, that evil characters are dark.

Anybody knows who lives with animals, they teach you more about what it is to be a good human than most people: patience, goodheartedness, enthusiasm, presence, forgiveness, focus, restfulness, honesty.

I believe that all great art holds the power to dissolve things: time, distance, difference, injustice, alienation, despair. I believe that all great art holds the power to mend things: join, comfort, inspire hope in fellowship, reconcile us to our selves. Art is good for my soul precisely because it reminds me that we have souls in the first place.

I live a soldier's life when I'm working. That's how it feels to me, except I've got a slightly greater chance of survival.

I think that's true of all cinema, that's why cinema is the great humanistic art form. Whatever the film is, it doesn't matter what the film is about, or even whether it's a narrative or figurative film at all, it's an invitation to step into somebody else's shoes. Even if it's the filmmaker's shoes filming a landscape, you go into somebody else's shoes and you look out of their lens, you look out of their eyes and their imagination. That's what going to the pictures is all about.

I never quite understand the way society decides who is beautiful and who is not. But an open face and a capacity for kindness always feel like reliable signifiers to me.