"It’s something of a gangster movie. I can’t say too much without giving away the plot, but it’s the best character development of any film I’ve ever seen. And, as with all of Paolo Sorrentino’s work, it keeps you guessing. His stuff is at once aesthetically beautiful and really cheerfully playful. He’s a very mischievous director, but he has an aching heart for romance which underpins everything. Sorrentino does these vast, beautiful things but manages to give it a heart and a warm personality – proclaiming the great beauty in things without it being a serious business for serious men."

"Do I get pretentious? Because this is foreign. {laughs] I love that German film from a few years ago that won the Oscar, The Lives of Others. Such a great movie. I’ve seen it a bunch, and I own it. I love, love, love that movie, and I found that it was just intensely riveting and scary and beautiful and so well crafted, so well plotted as a movie. And such a sad comment on a time in a certain country, but also a really beautiful comment on people being altered and finding their humanity again. I thought that movie was really special."