I always think that if you look at anyone in detail, you will have empathy for them because you recognize them as a human being, no matter what they've done.

I don't think you can question your instinct; you should always trust it.

I can't remember why or how I started writing, but I think it was always a way of making sense of the world.

I don't want to think too much about me.

Interestingly, I never thought Id do an adaptation. Ive also been quite against them. I think trying to translate one medium to another is wrong. I never really felt that books fitted into film. Generally people are disappointed, arent they?

I think the reality is important anyway.

I don't think estates are grim places.

I wonder whether my bleak-o-meter is set differently from other people's. I have such passion for what I do that I can't see it as bleak. When people use that word, or “grim” or “gritty,” I just think, “Oh, come on, look a bit deeper.” My films don't give you an easy ride. I can see that. The sense I get is that people have quite a physical experience with them. They feel afterwards that they've really been through something.