Frequently lately it’s reading a script, but that can come with some jeopardy because reading a script predisposes you to a kind of movie you expect to see, and then when it falls short of that expectation you have to realign. Sometimes the best experiences are when I know nothing about this movie, I’ve never met the director and I come and see something and I’m blank because then it’s coming at you in a way it would never come at you if you’d read the script, with an expectation.

I’m very passionate about the kind of scripts that I take on, the kind of stories that I’m part of. I turn down a lot of scripts but the truth is when you don’t know where you are going to, everywhere will look like the way, but when you know where you are going to, from the beginning of your career, you channel your path and you are very mindful about it. Sometimes, it looks like, ‘what are you doing’, but if you have a bigger picture in mind, you will definitely get there. Nothing good comes easy.

Once I'm committed to a role, I will go very deep into it, even when I'm not at work. I'll keep on studying the script, maybe 40 or 50 times. I might call a scriptwriter at three in the morning to say I've thought of something new.

As a director, you have the job of dreaming up the movie, and then you have to get everyone else in the movie – hundreds of people – to have that same dream, too.

My ideas about writing changed as soon as I started directing. As a writer, I wanted my scripts to be perfect and fully formed. As a director, I know there are always factors beyond my control. Many things in any film cannot be planned concretely in advance. The best you can do is visualise what you want, and then respond to what’s there once you go on set. Nowadays I start from a fairly loose script and tend to write the dialogue on the day of shooting.

I’m still looking for that perfect role for me, the kind of script you read and just think, This is it! When I read it, I’ll know.

When you’re writing a screenplay, it’s like you’re dreaming the film for yourself again and again and again until it becomes almost like a memory before you make it...Nobody in the world cares if it doesn’t exist. You have to either believe in this fiction hard enough for it to become real, or you don’t, and it won’t.

When I get a script, apart from what my director is planning to draw for me, I go to the drawing board, I imagine a lot of things. I dig up experiences which might not be my own. Things I have heard and I create the character.

You don’t survive as a screenwriter-for-hire if you’re not willing to incorporate other people’s ideas or at least be willing to consider them. What I’ve found is that other people have really good ideas, which make you look better. It’s part of the process. At all stages of production, including pre- and post-, your film is going to change because it’s being shaped by all these people and ideas.

The funny thing about directing is that you have your own opinions, but it's a collaboration. Directing is a group effort. Even though you might think something works, the smartest thing you can do as a director is try and weigh the opinions of the people around you.

There is this rush in me, it is there, and you can feel it inside you, knowing that somebody is going to make use of it. It comes at the end of the script you write knowing you have been able to come up with something that someone else will make use of what you are doing. Then, knowing that not everybody can do what you are doing.

We try to give a voice to not just the writers or our directors, but even the story artists. We make it in a way that they also get to be participants in the writing and in the brainstorming so that they can put their contributions in. It becomes this amazing hive mind of, how can we make this as authentic of a feeling and experience as possible? I do think a lot of that is just getting the right team that gets along and just cares enough about the show or the movie. That even extends to the art team and the production. It really makes a difference when they care about what’s being said and what the message is.

A good script is a good script. I want three-dimensional, truthful characters that the audience will care about and a script that has something to say. Even if the script is just for pure entertainment and escapism it can have something to say. I look now for roles that are different from what I have done before. I want to challenge myself and people’s perceptions of me. If we challenge ourselves, we grow.

You have to do it. You can't keep thinking about it, you just sort of surrender to it, especially when you get the opportunity to work with great actors.