I really thought I couldn't be a mum. We had tried several times with IVF,, and it hadn't worked and we'd given up in a way. We both thought, 'You know what, that's that. It's not going to happen - let's move on.'

Viceroy' is the first British film about the Raj and the transfer of power from Britain to India made by a British Indian director. It is a British film made from an Indian perspective.

I saw 'Billy Elliot' again, and what I loved about it was the way it had become a social document, a reminder of what happened with the mining communities in the '80s. And I thought, 'Everyone keeps wanting me to make a sequel to 'Beckham,' but maybe a musical remake is the answer, embracing all this theatricality.'

Writing film scripts is the hardest thing in the world. A script has to go to five or six drafts, and you need the feedback of other people and to keep coming back with a fresh eye, honing it down.

I think we're experiencing a resurgence of fantasy-type conventions in general because people want to get out around kindred spirits. Cons are a great place to meet people you've been tweeting and FB'ing with, and since you've had an online relationship with them, it's not like meeting for the first time.

Certain people in the United States are driving nails into this structure of our relationship, then cutting off the heads. So the Soviets must use their teeth to pull them out.

I've always appreciated working with people I have chemistry with, who are friends, and where you feel that the work is growing while you are getting to know each other better.

I never thought that was even possible, to have your friends working with you. In the music, yes, in the creative side, yes, but in the business side, I need people who take me fully seriously.