I completely take on the risk, the poker game, which being an artist means, and I'm going to try to make a film which honestly reflects what I have in my head.
Abroad, they have covered pretty much all subjects, explored every possibility, every twist. So similarities between ideas you have and those filmed abroad are quite possible.
The average movie-goer in this country sees six films in a year. That's one every two months. What the studios are trying to do is make sure it's their movie.
I think ultimately if you have a very high expectation of your audience and you know exactly what it is you're trying to express through the medium of film, there will always be an audience for you.
The doctors say it dates back to a film where I had these huge prosthetic breasts because my character was breast-feeding. The weight of them, and of the baby, did my back in.
It might kill you to say it, because the film really takes on the Catholic Church, but I do think there is a sort of affection for certain rituals, and an authenticity to the presentation of those rituals, in 'Mea Maxima Culpa.'
I view every film as a commitment to undertake a long journey. I suppose this has to do with my need to leave no stone unturned, and sometimes to even dig deeper into the mine.
I enjoy horse riding, tennis, yoga and running - it helps to clear my head, and I can do bits of yoga in between filming.
When I was new, I didn't know where my career will go. Initially, my films were not even successful, but then I learned a lot from my mistakes.
They say an elephant never forgets. Well, you are not an elephant. Take notes, constantly. Save interesting thoughts, quotations, films, technologies... the medium doesn't matter, so long as it inspires you.
Everybody knows that I am not usually patient enough to actually sit down and watch one of my own films from the beginning to the end - I never do.
As film-makers, it is very important for us to find common ground between cultures, and maybe that's less the case for politicians who benefit more from finding the conflicts and differences between us.
Usually when I write a script, I have in mind some real people that I'm writing about, who don't always act in the film afterward.
Usually when I take my films to festivals, I feel incredibly anxious about them. I wonder how it will be received, how the audience will react. I feel deeply responsible for them.
Indian films have this obsession with hygienic clean spaces, even though the country's not so clean. They're either shot in the studios or shot in London, in America, in Switzerland - clean places. Everywhere except India.
When I was at drama school I wanted to do classical theatre. It just so happened that I did a film when I came out and I moved that way.
In film, there's so many little things where not just the actor can blow his lines, but technically, it doesn't quite come off in the perfect way envisioned.
All the arts are predominantly national, and therefore the Australian Film Commission should be funding us. The battle gets more and more vicious each year.
You look at how many years you have left, and you start to think: 'How many more films do I have in me?'
I do believe, and I will always believe, that Shakespeare on film is really something that should be tried more often because it is an opportunity to take the humanity that Shakespeare writes into characters and express it.
I don't find anything interesting about the choices a character faces in major films or theater projects. The characters are just cut-out dolls with the American flag sewn on them.
