William Shakespeare was a brilliant writer and he only wrote the truth. So, if I don't believe it, I have to work really hard to see what that truth is so that I do; that's the only way I can make it believable for the audience.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Truth is quite constricting, in a way. You endlessly see at the start of a film 'This is a true story'.
Most people, even among those who know Shakespeare well and come into real contact with his mind, are inclined to isolate and exaggerate some one aspect of the tragic fact.
I think nobody since has written such extraordinary work as Shakespeare writes. The characters he writes are full of inconsistencies, which is a great human quality - I mean, we're all very inconsistent in the way we behave.
Whether it is the cavemen in the caves thousands of years ago, Shakespeare plays, television, movies and books, stories and characters take us on a journey. All I do is tell those stories without scripts and without actors.
I've done a number of things based on real people or true stories or based on books, and I'm a great believer that you have to be true to the script.
I have always felt that the truth is prophetic, and that if you describe precisely what you see and give it life with your imagination, then what you write ought to have lasting value, no matter what the mood of your prose.
There are a lot of theories about Shakespeare.
The exquisite truth is to believe in something that maybe you know is a fiction, but you believe in it willingly.
I've got no need to prove to myself that I can do Shakespeare. I've done it.
I think academics are infuriating. For every expert on Shakespeare there is another one to cancel his theory out. It drives you up the wall. I think the greatest form of finding out the truth is through fantasy.