Director

The plays I choose to work on are about having masks. We all have masks in life, but there is a different inner life going on. The audience has to work hard to see what is going on. I love what is not on display.

'War Horse' is just an extraordinary being.

I suppose what's so amazing about working at the National Theatre is that, because it's a subsidized theatre, you're not trying to create a product that's going to have a mass market in order to make the money back.

I believe that theater has to be utterly life-changing for the people watching it.

I would like to see more female stories out there, particularly older female stories.

My father was a director, and my mother and grandparents were actors, so I spent a great deal of my time as a teenager trying to get away from the theatre.

I used to love getting older.

Often during rehearsals, I catch myself thinking, 'God, this is hard. Why am I always choosing such difficult plays to put on?'

For me, it's life or death doing plays: there's this perfectionist thing about me that it has to be brilliant - anything less than that is a failure.

Whether you're a man or a woman, life can be very, very difficult and confusing and desperate, and it's life-enhancing to know that somehow, there is a way through it.

A bad audition is usually the director's fault, not the actor's. It's up to the director to get the atmosphere right to get the best out of your auditionees.

I am quite an insecure person, and I think that, like any director, if I'm asked about my vision for a piece, I feel very vulnerable.

I always wanted to beat my own path.

I'm drawn to female stories, of which there aren't that many, and particularly to stories now about older women. The things they have to confront and override is really fascinating. That's a whole untold part of our world.

I worked in casting for about five years before I became a director, and that taught me a huge amount because you never actually will see the character walk through the door - and if you do, then you have to be slightly suspicious of that.

It's impossible to feel the creative juices flowing if you're always worried about the end result. I think really, really good work comes out of people being quite open, not stressed, really exploring, trying to be imaginative, without worrying too much about the end result.

There's a certain type of theatre that I haven't got any time for at all - established, boring, same-old stuff without any reason or passion. There's quite a lot of it about, and it motivates me to try to do something different, something risky, raw, ugly, and challenging.

I find theater emotionally expensive and all-involving. You have to pour so much blood and passion and heart into it. And so much time. Why do that for something that's only vaguely interesting and anyone can do it?

Some directors have the gift of the gab, but I don't.

I never want to see 'Hamlet' ever again! Never ever!