"Chekhov is one of my gods and this, his first play, is my favorite. It’s a well-observed ensemble of the famous, the not-so-famous and their hangers-on at a country house they retreat to when the theatre is too much with them. But even there they are very good at playing games with one another. The genius of Chekhov is to transcend the small events that define us and reveal the universal truth behind the most ordinary situation. To me, he is the first modern writer. He writes on a human scale and by doing so with such detail, he rises to Olympian heights as surely as Oedipus or Hamlet."

"I remember seeing A Clockwork Orange as a very young kid — probably too young to be seeing it — and there was something kind of dangerous about that world. It was like I know I should have been watching, but there was something about the style in which it was shot. Maybe it was how long the camera stayed looking at one thing, but it didn’t move very far. It captured a certain theatrical nature of something. There was almost a vaudeville quality to it all as well. I think I’m drawn to that because I have a love of theatre, and of pictures that are perhaps a little bit larger than life."