I don't like landscapes. I like cities. Lots of cities. I like buildings. I like streets.

I remembered watching the film from Alfred Hitchcock, 'Dial M for Murder,' and he shot almost all of that movie in one room. There was a genius in what Hitchcock did by manipulating things in that room so that you could see the distances between things like the tables and the vases because of how he used perspective.

But no one should have the right to manipulate my films in the first place.

Horror is like a serpent; always shedding its skin, always changing. And it will always come back. It can't be hidden away like the guilty secrets we try to keep in our subconscious.

I was lucky enough to meet someone when I was about 46 and had my first child when I was 48, so I got started late, but I also got all that other stuff out of the way and was at a point where I could be a consistent presence at home.

The Grimm collections were never intended for children. Not because kids were excluded, but because the division we make today of children's literature didn't exist then. The idea of protecting children from tales with violence didn't occur until the earlier part of the 19th century.

Your children are grown and your career has slowed down - all the stuff that took up so much attention is gone, and you're left with expansive time and space. You have to reimagine who you are and what life is about.

My parents were an ordinary East End family and very supportive - they would have supported me no matter what I wanted to do.