“I think you get better at staring into space.”

Where you can be in their shoes and therefore be more involved if they’re people that you recognize.

It’s the sort of subject that always interests me: jealousy and the language of suspicion and guilt. I think it interests people.

Always, with any movie that I do, I have a book of ideas that I’ve heard, or seen, or whatever, and I always try to incorporate it in the film.

Well, I think just the fact that you are making your first film is a huge step.

You have to invent a book of rules of what you can do and what you can’t do.

I looked at Brief Encounter very closely, to be honest.

I’ve always been interested in films where you can identify with the actors.

I was watching Monster’s Ball, which is a fabulous movie. It’s just a little gem: beautifully shot, and shot in a way I never would have done.

Their every instinct – and I have to say this is without exception – is to iron out the bumps, and It’s always the bumps that are the most interesting stuff.

Foxes was a movie that didn’t do a lot of business but it didn’t do too badly critically and eventually they offered me other things.

I think that there are points where you become so close to an actor,

The interesting thing was that next I tried a film called Star Man, which Michael Douglas was producing.

Somebody said that I’m a bit like a sponge, grabbing things here and there, soaking stuff up. [As a director] you have to be, really.

The danger is that if you have a bunch of ideas that you forget to use.

If you are prepared to make a fool of yourself for them then you usually get that back.

Obviously, in dealing with a relationship, sexuality has to be involved, and jealousy and emotions like that. And I don’t know, I’ve always been intrigued by those emotions.

Health and cheerfulness naturally beget each other.

I wish I could get into other shows, but I just don’t have time!

There is plenty of peace in any home where the family doesn’t make the mistake of trying to get together.

The worst mistake of a woman is to go to the kitchen, because then she never gets out of there.

I marvel every day at how people can excel – and that’s what really gets me going.

Things get very clear when you’re cornered.

I could get you to smile like that, and without sales tax.

True happiness, we are told, consists in getting out of one’s self; but the point is not only to get out – you must stay out; and to stay out you must have some absorbing errand.