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I've always loved silent movies. I recently saw 'Tilly's Punctured Romance' at the Academy, which is the first comedy made with Charlie Chaplin in 1914, and I sat there, and I couldn't believe that the entire audience of 2,000 people were laughing that hard from a movie made in 1914 - and there were no words; it was all faces.

For me, I loved it. I only want to make silent movies now.

Silent films were, I think, more different than we know to sound films. We think of it as simply that we added dialogue and in actual fact I think it was an entirely different art form.

I like some of the early silent films because I love to watch how actors had to play then. What would interest me today is to do a silent film.

I always loved silent movies. I was not a specialist, but I loved them. And when I started directing, I became really fascinated by the format - how it works, the device of the silent movie. It's not the same form of expression as a talkie. The lack of sounds makes you participate in the storytelling.

I watched a lot of silent directors who were absolutely great like John Ford and Fritz Lang, Tod Browning, and also some very modern directors like The Coen Brothers. The directors take the freedom within their own movies to be melodramatic or funny when they chose to be. They do whatever they want and they don't care about the genre.

Some directors were brilliant in the silent era but never felt at home in sound. It's like a sculptor being forced to take up painting.

I love silent cinema but don't hold it sacred. Like any branch of film there are some very boring films alongside the masterpieces.

'The Quiet Ones' was my first film, let alone my first horror film, and I had so much fun. I had such a laugh, every single day. I look like such a feral child in it.