By employing a certain sense of humor, you essentially get more serious about things and show conflict more effectively than if you were overly dramatic or only violent because that's a one-way approach that just forces audiences to watch something appalling.

I think you can be much truer to real emotions and reality by creating something that on the surface seems artificial but, by then putting everything together in the end, is much more impactful than trying to use realism in every individual element of the film.

I always loved films, and when I decided to go to film school, it was with the excuse that I would go into making commercials, because that would be a proper profession, and people wouldn't think I was crazy.

Try to place the camera somewhere where you get most of the information from there, so you don't need to have too many shots and be too explanatory and expositional about the scene.

I think the hardest thing about my life is that I've met so many people all over the world who I love, but they're not friends with each other.

I love my relationship with Coach Vermeil because it is one of the few genuine relationships that I have.

Expats are a self-selecting group of outgoing, confident people - if you're not those things, you probably don't choose this adventure - and the lifestyle is very conducive to making fast, close friends.

In those early years in New York when I was a stranger in a big city, it was the companionship and later friendship which I was offered in the Linnean Society that was the most important thing in my life.