"I’m a huge Mike Leigh fan and would love to work with him. His approach to filming sounds fascinating and exciting. I understand that he doesn’t give his actors a script but instead hands them scenes and encourages improvisation. I’m not sure if this is indeed his process, but the result is nothing short of beautiful intimate moments. And this film is full of them! At times it feels so intimate it’s almost voyeuristic. To me, that’s what makes a performance really exciting…when you’re almost embarrassed to be peeking into peoples’ lives. And that happens a lot in this perfect emotional drama."

"Another classic foundation piece of modern cinema. My personal favorite thing about this film is the relatable dynamic of the two main characters’ somewhat undefined relationship, a dynamic that after fifty years still feels as modern as ever. For different reasons, I’m also a big fan of the widely panned 1983 remake starring Richard Gere, in arguably the coolest role of his career. The remake is no Godard—really it’s a different film—but I challenge anyone to forget that they’ve ever seen the original for ninety minutes, revisit the remake, and not admit its criminally overlooked qualities!"

"Everything feels impossible until it happens. The #MeToo movement was revolutionary because it made real, in a sudden and irreversible way, a world that previously lived only in the minds of the most radical. In Believe Me, a roster of the most perceptive and fearless writers working today look at #MeToo and beyond: what could this world look like if we believed women the first time, if we didn’t punish women for speaking the truth, if we centered women in their own stories, if we allowed ourselves to imagine radical models of care and justice and then acted to make them real?"

"This reminds me of the time I went through a big Miles Davis phase. Talk about going into different worlds with an artist – he did that every time, from Kind Of Blue and Porgy and Bess onwards, anyway. This album's still the one I return to, from 1969, and the band is phenomenal. You've got Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea on electric piano, Wayne Shorter on soprano saxophone, John McLaughlin on guitar. This is truly cosmic music for me, or even music that feels like it's emerging from the cosmos. As it plays, you feel like you're coming up with the sunshine."

"I don’t know how controversial it is in Beach Boys fan circles but I really like the Brother years. It’s as if they’ve all spent years with a genius, learning how to do it, soaking up musical know-how like sponges and then just gone for it themselves. There are some great songs – The Trader is one of my favourites, and Sail On Sailor is one of my wife’s all-time favourite songs. I’m drawn to beauty in music. You can put three chords together and it does something weird to me. It feels a little bit like magic."

"George is quite stuck as an artist, and he feels like he’s having a hard time finding inspiration. And the character of Dot comes to him and sings, “Stop worrying where you’re going, move on/ If you can know where you’re going, you’ve gone /Just keep moving on.” It’s absolutely the truth. And the specific lyric that breaks me up every time is, “Anything you do/ Let it come from you/ Then it will be new/ Give us more to see.” That is an artist’s credo. That, to me, is like a Bible verse that I return to over and over."

"There is a section in “Anna Karenina” where Levin goes into the fields to assist the peasants with his harvest. It is hard work, at first awkward and frustrating. The labor requires strength, patience and a centered connection to one's self before productivity and pleasure are possible. This passage has always stuck with me as an example of the level of commitment it takes to do anything well in life. I try to remind myself of Levin when life or work feels overwhelming. The rest of the book, of course, is just a big, fat masterpiece."