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If you compare the violence in 'Happy Valley' to the violence in something like 'Game of Thrones,' it's nothing. But it is shocking because it's so real and grounded. The characters could live next door to you - they're not in a remote fantasy world.

From the director's point of view, it's infinitely easier to do violence than to do a good dramatic scene.

Lots of people think the violence in the films I make is overwhelming, but they think they're seeing something that they aren't seeing.

I think there's as much violence, in a way, as a scene with two women having a cup of coffee in a Ruth Rendell novel - in terms of emotional violence and the violence you can inflict with language - as there is in the most graphic kind of serial killer/slasher novel you can think of.

I think violence in a cinematic context can be, if handled in a certain way, very seductive.

I think movies glamorize violence, in the sense that they make it in a way that it's either cool or funny.

A little bit of gratuitous violence in a well-thought-out story is fine.

I don't think violence on film breeds violence in life. Violence in life breeds violence in films.

Violence was almost an aphrodisiac for me.

It's not that the film is violent, it's that people have an issue with violence right now.