I would say that I think the film [I am love] is absolutely about nature, it recommends human nature. You don't need to recommend change, that's inevitable, it's the only reliable thing we have.

When I say that it's taken us [with Luca Guadagnino ] 11 years to make this film, what I mean is that it was 11 years ago that we started to talk about a kind of cinema that we wanted to make together.

You can sit next to somebody on the underground, and you can look at them quite intensely, but you can never, ever know what they're wearing under their clothes.

Well the truth is, everybody, when they die, leaves a void that cannot be filled.

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.

We were very clear that this film's [Young Adam] so much about a relationship that's borne out through the sexual contact, and that that's the way they communicate.

I think of great masters, like [Alfred] Hitchcock, for example, who works absolutely within this sensational realm. You feel like you can always tell what temperature a room is in a Hitchcock film because the people feel alive, they don't feel like they're just being filmed on a stage.