Director

When I left college, I though that I would be immediately embraced by the film world and instead found myself sitting in a squat for three years not knowing what to do with my life.

I consider all drama to be the opportunity to see the world from another person's point of view. That seems to be the point of drama, really. And thereby to encourage understanding and even love.

The more you practise happiness, the better you get at it. So if you spend lots of time practising being depressed, you're going to get really good at being depressed. And if you spend lots of time practising being happy, you're going to get better at being happy.

'Hanna' was nice. It was Saoirse Ronan's idea. Usually, the director casts the actor, but in this case, the actor cast the director.

With 'Atonement,' I put a lot of pressure on myself, and then I made an advert for Chanel, which 'broke the camel's back' emotionally.

I couldn't be a cameraman or a designer or an actor - I have to be a director because I learned how to do that from my dad.

That luxury, ossified Los Angeles world isn't good for the soul.

I've made some films that were very much image based: 'Anna Karenina' and 'Pan,' for instance.

I find men odd. I don't really understand men. I kind of feel like I understand women better than I do men, really.

You need a pulse in a film. If I see a film that doesn't have rhythm, it's like listening to music that doesn't have rhythm; it doesn't really work.

'Blue Velvet' changed my life forever. It was like I'd always read Chaucer and suddenly discovered Charles Bukowski. It made me understand that there is poetry of sublime ecstasy and dark terror, and it spoke to a side of me that hadn't been reached before.

I've been lucky over the past few years. Things have just happened for me.

Every time I make a film, I feel it gives me the chance to learn something new.

Film has become a very passive experience, but with theatre, there is a contract made with the audience, where they participate. That's why my parents' puppet theatre was such a special place - people used their imaginations. It's a muscle that needs using.

I don't make a division between an art film and commercial art.

Studios are often very nervous of things they don't recognize, by which I mean things that haven't been done before, and therefore, they take a really original idea, and they recognize the originality, and then they try and make it look like something they recognize. So they try to turn it into something far more procedural.

I kind of muddled through 'Pride & Prejudice,' but with 'Atonement,' I knew what I was doing. That makes it sound like I had no doubt. I had doubts - I didn't know whether it would work. But I knew exactly what I wanted to try to do.

Most of my choices come about through some kind of intuition or instinct, and if I need to, I'll post-rationalize them, intellectually, afterwards. But generally, they come about just by feeling.

I had a breakdown after making 'Atonement.'

I'd like to make the film of Sam Selvon's book 'The Lonely Londoners.'