My Grandmother Was A Huge Influence On

The Only Lesson To Extract From Any Civil War Is That It's Pointless And Futile And Ugly, And That There Is Nothing Glamorous Or Heroic About It. There Are Heroes, But The Causes Are Never Heroic.

Of Course, Like All Film-makers I've Been Mesmerised By Cinema Since I Was A Child.

No Studio In Hollywood Wanted 'cold Mountain.' None. No One Wanted 'ripley,' No One Wanted 'the English Patient.' That Tells You There Isn't Really An Appetite For Ambitious Movie-making Out There.

I Looked Around And We Were About A Mile-and-a-half From Land, And I Thought, 'ok, I'm Going To Drown Now.' And Then I Started To Flail Out And Panic. I Gradually Calmed Down And I Got Home. But The Reality Was That In That Moment I Was Panicking And I Feel Like That To Me Was The Clue About Ripley, That Ripley Constantly Finds Himself Out Of His Depth In The Film And Then Reacts Very, Very Badly.

Waiting Is Part Of Writing. When I Write The Word 'waiting' By Hand It Even Looks Like 'writing.'