Quote

When I go to movies and I love the movie, it's because it feels like it articulated something about how we're living now, and also gives me some insight into my own life. I feel actually altered after having seen it.

Making movies is a way of understanding myself and the world.

When I go to a film, you're taking it easy and you let things wash over you. That's what cinema's all about. You get involved in a world that's being created in front of you.

I don't necessarily see myself as an experienced filmmaker just because I've been in a few movies.

It's so rare that you see a movie that you are genuinely moved by on a real level, and you relate to it, and you come out feeling uplifted.

When you're working with people you've seen in hundreds of films... it's a bit crazy to step outside yourself for a minute and think, 'This is surreal.' But I try not to get too bogged down in that.

I have a lot of influences. I like to sit down with the cinematographer a month before, and we'll watch pieces of 20 or 30 movies. You're basically the sum of all the experiences you've ever had, and they're sort of shaken up in you and reproduced in the things you create, and that includes seeing movies.

When you make a movie, it's just so personal and then you put it out in front of people and it becomes something else.

It's a mixed feeling when everything you've ever wanted in making films is coming true, and yet you feel scared because it's happening all at once. Suddenly you're in rooms with people you've looked up to for years, the Judi Denches. You wonder if you're good, if you have what it takes.

There comes a point in your moviegoing life where you look at the screen and then you look at the world and you ask, 'What is going on?' You want the movies to show you the chaos and mess and risk and failure that are normal for a lot of us. Generally, the movies hide all of that.