I spent the majority of my teenage years in hospitals, rehabs and halfway houses.

I was never interested in acting on film or in television, but I was always more inclined to writing and directing, and the exploration of character.

Sometimes you can just have a dialogue with an actor beforehand and shape the performance then, but other actors need more guidance on the set.

As a child I’m sure I was no different from any other human being struggling to navigate the difficulties and complexities of their childhood and adolescent years. I feel it’s a time when all of us need an escape, a place where we can leave the world behind and just disappear. For me, it was film."

I think of childhood as an explosion of creativity. For most people, growing up and earning a living means leaving all that behind. But an artist never leaves that behind. Edwin Mullhouse was my way of exploring the child as artist and, under the guise of childhood, something larger.

Obviously, something like ballet, you have music, you dance with the music and it's a very direct connection. With visual art, when there's no music that accompanies the art, such as great masterworks in a museum, you wind up interpreting what the artist is doing, how the artist made that work and what they're conveying.

I took an MA course in creative writing a couple of years back, and I was definitely in the bottom of the class.

Once you get into space, you can really unleash a lot of creativity, but the launch itself? I have been through all of the creative ways, and believe me, chemical rockets are the best.