It's a film about the pull of the past and the fact that whether you're a rehabilitating heroin addict or an ageing rugby league footballer or even a criminal kingpin, you have to let go of the past in order to live the present,

It was important in this case because there's a couple of subjects I know a little about but I need to know a lot about.

The threat of disintegration and collapse in this family and to a certain extent the heroic struggle of the central character in overcoming the problems that beset her is real. It's real, you know? It's not the stuff of losers, it's the stuff of ordinary families, ordinary suburban families. Not the working class poor, not the silly rich, it's the stuff of every single family I know. There is a family member, there is a beloved friend who is beset by the life and death struggle to do with drug addiction and getting free of it.

I am inspired by movies with distinctive directorial signatures that boldly underscore the writing,

On one level it is quite an ambitious sprawling narrative.

Whenever you go to these things, everyone's modest and say they don't want to be nominated but it's great publicity and attention for the film.