Gurinder Chadha

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 was a good Indian girl, but naughty in that I would often sneak out of the back door and into the garden and go off with my friends when I should have been at home cooking or cleaning. ”

One of the best things about the award season is that when a British film succeeds at the Oscars and BAFTAs, such as 'Slumdog Millionaire' in 2009 and 'The King's Speech' this year, the British public get right behind it with an immense sense of national pride. ”

I can't stand films where parents are portrayed as old and doddery, and ignore their kids. ”

I tell stories about people audiences might think they have nothing in common with, then they emotionally connect with them and find they're not different at all. ”

I use humour a lot because humour is a great equaliser. Everyone laughs at the same things if you set them up properly, and that makes everybody equal. At the end of the day, I see my job as being there to entertain as well as inform and provoke. ”

Constantly, I've been asked to make a sequel to 'Beckham.' However, I thought a West End show was the proper way to go. Once we made the show, I wanted to make sure that I embraced the West End genre rather than just put the film on stage. ”