I was always obsessed with finding truly researched images to add authenticity, out of that came something totally contemporary and modern. Research is very key to my process because over and over again, reality provides more interesting images than you could have invented.

Thank you to my wonderful actors, the triangle of man-love which is Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush and me.

I appear to be drawn to iconic characters and what they reflect back to our cultures.

I began to think that if you're a stutterer, it's about inhabiting silence, emptiness, and nothingness.

If you look at Shakespeare's history plays, what the setting of monarchy allows is this extraordinary intensification of emotions and predicament.

The more uncompromisingly specific you are the more you end up touching the bigger universal truths.

Films about the English monarchy, they tend to have a lavishness, sumptuous imagery, it's all very posh and rich.