I was just talking to Benedict [Cumberbatch] who's got a little baby and knows his father lives in his phone. We as humans are evolving really fast, so everyday we're hit with that.

We also knew [ me and Ewan McGregor] that, on a practical level, if there was going to be that much sex in the film [Young Adam] - which there clearly had to be because sex is the meat and potatoes of the thing - it had to be varied for the audience, because it's important to keep the audience living in it.

To be honest the work that a producer does is work that I've done for most of my working life. It's work that I started to do, for example, when I worked with Sally Potter on Orlando. We developed it together over five years.

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.

One of the wonderful things that I've always loved as an art student, what I always loved about comics, was that they are interpreted differently by different graphic artists all the time, so now film is doing that thanks to Marvel Studios.

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 have this very strange relationship with my work, which is that it's like a conversation between me and it.