My wife Victoria Harwood was art director on 'Far North ' and she had designed my student film 'The Sheep Thief.'
I wanted to study film at an art school - I loved the idea of being surrounded by designers and artists. We were encouraged to be experimental.
Real life is far more complicated than fiction.
I never know going in if I've even got a movie to make. Once you start making a film you hope there's going to be enough material! My job as a director is always to push for more.
For me 'Amy' is a very dark film about love.
You don't have to be someone who likes walking a tightrope across the Twin Towers to watch 'Man On Wire.'
I like to make films where I learn along the way like the audience.
A lot of the time when I'm working I'm abroad.
'Amy' is somewhere in the middle of authorized and unauthorized.
As a kid I thought movies were boring. My parents would hire VHS recorders for the weekend and watch Bollywood movies. I'd get bored and go out to Stoke Newington common to play football.
You can't stop people watching on mobiles but I hope the old fashioned idea of sitting in a dark room with a big screen with a group of strangers lives on forever.
Boxing is made for film - there is corruption violence tragedy and the chance that the underdog can catch the champion with one lucky punch.
My films often have a spiritual dimension which comes from my Muslim background and I'm happy to tackle that in cinema.
Directing can be very lonely and quite intimidating.
I lived in Camden Primrose Hill and Kentish Town for 10 years.
The Tour de France would make a great movie. Drugs corruption political chicanery guys risking their lives - everything you need for a great sports drama.
Why make a movie about Ayrton Senna? Someone who drove around in circles at 200mph in a car that looked like a giant cigarette packet? Why would anyone who isn't already a fan of Formula 1 care?
The Monaco Grand Prix is in May right around the time of Cannes.
I don't normally make documentaries. I'm a drama director. I've made a few short docs but I don't like talking heads or 'voice of God' narrators.
If I'm going to do something I'm going to spend however long it takes to get it right.
My team and I used the actual footage to create a three-act story of the life of Ayrton Senna. There are no talking heads and no voiceover. Senna narrates his own epic dramatic thrilling journey.
Hopefully with digital projection a film will always look the way the filmmaker intended.
I made several short films with very little dialogue. I'm still not a fan of talking heads. My stories are told with images as much as possible.
I'm a sport fan. So I have always watched everything and I used to watch racing. Formula One was always on. The genius about it is that it's on at lunchtime on a Sunday.
There's this great TV show we have called 'Later... with Jools Holland' a live-music show on Friday nights. Anyone and everyone's been on it.
I worked with Michelle Yeoh on my last film 'Far North ' and her partner is Jean Todt; at the time he ran Ferrari. So I went as a VIP to the British grand prix.
I was a sports fan long before I had any interest in film-making.
While still a young student at film school I was lucky enough to get a golden ticket to a Martin Scorsese master class at BAFTA in Piccadilly: fancy but technically still 'the flicks'.
We were studying at Newport Film School and I found that the only way for me to make films - because you need people and you need equipment - was that I had to be a student.
I just loved films. I knew I wanted to work on film not video.
As a filmmaker you complete a film you have spent years obsessively making and you know the release prints will never look quite the same; prints get scratched and dirty.
I love telling stories with images. But I think there's more to just saying a movie is great visually.
People have always been recording what's going on around them in one form or another.
I don't really rely on watching video monitors. They put you at a certain distance from your actors and it makes me feel less a part of what's really happening in the scene.
The worst thing ever for me is go see a movie and the next day I go 'What did I do last night? I have no memory of this $300 million movie I watched because I felt nothing.'
I often make films about subjects I don't really know much about. Maybe it's laziness but I don't go in there having done a tonne of research; the research happens while I'm making the film.
In a film called 'Senna ' the clue is in the title and we have a Brazilian badge on our sleeve as we were making it. We were making it from Senna's point of view with Senna narrating it.
Do the Right Thing' has been a big influence on me. I saw it when it first came out in 1989. I was about 18 and it blew me away on many levels - I had never seen anything like it before.