Fairy tales to me are never happy, sweet stories. They're moral stories about overcoming the dark side and the bad.

I couldn't be a cameraman or a designer or an actor - I have to be a director because I learned how to do that from my dad.

An artist needs to live to create, and to live means to suffer.

Every time I make a film, I feel it gives me the chance to learn something new.

Generally, I've never known quite how to fit in in civilian life, but on set, making a film, I know exactly where to go, how to behave and how I fit.

I don't make a division between an art film and commercial art.

I feel more in touch with the world when I'm filming.

I find it ironic that happy endings now are called fairytale endings because there's nothing happy about most fairytale endings.

I like the idea of doing something outside my comfort zone.

I see the job of directing as being one of creating the right atmosphere, creating an environment where people can realize their full potential.

I wouldn't presume to know something, but I have lots to learn and that's what I attempt to do through my work.

I've been lucky over the past few years. Things have just happened for me.

My father was 65 when I was born so we didn't have much time together.

I think my dyslexia was a vital part of my development because my inability to read and write meant that I had to find knowledge elsewhere so I looked to the cinema.

Most of my choices come about through some kind of intuition or instinct, and if I need to, I'll post-rationalize them, intellectually, afterwards. But generally, they come about just by feeling.

'Pride' is my first film with a happy ending. Before, I naively thought they were a cop-out, but now I've come to believe that happy endings and wish fulfilment are an incredibly important part of our cultural life.

There's good art and there's bad art. A lot of action films are bad art, but Paul Greengrass showed us with the Bourne films that it's possible to make an action film with a political, social conscience.