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

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.

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.

I think you get better at staring into space.

And the very real danger is that if your book of rules becomes a book of cliches.

I wanted to make a movie about the arbitrary nature of love.

I was speaking to Ridley Scott the other day and he makes a film every 18 months. He’s amazing really.

When I looked at the third base coach, he turned his back on me.

To put it rather bluntly, I am not the type who wants to go back to the land; I am the type who wants to go back to the hotel.

There is a point at which everything becomes simple and there is no longer any question of choice, because all you have staked will be lost if you look back. Life’s point of no return.

The ball was literally glued to the back of his foot – into the back of the net.

The myths have always condemned those who ‘looked back.’ Condemned them, whatever the paradise may have been which they were leaving. Hence this shadow over each departure from your decision.

It’s Satan’s delight to tell me that once he’s got me, he will keep me. But at that moment I can go back to God.

And were your back as broad as heaven, and your purse full of gold, and did your compassion reach from here to hell itself, there is nothing you can do.

For while the movements of people are unpredictable, the movement of time is predictable. While people can be doubted, time cannot be doubted. While people brood, time skips ahead without looking back.