Quote "I always work around an idea..."

I always work around an idea. If you know you love it, that's in the bank. Think round it. What does it make you think of? What were the things that were swirling around in your mind? With Brief Encounter I spent the first weeks reading Noel Coward's poetry. I was finding out about these bawdy songs that he was writing, getting my brain completely spinning with this amazing material and that was when I thought, ‘I'm going to put these songs into it’.

Much of my work and life had been inspired and informed by folk tales. I realised really early on that I felt Laura was like a Selkie and in one of the Selkie stories that she was like the seal woman. She absolutely loved her husband, but actually was not in her natural environment which, of course, is such an amazing feminist, ancient trope to explore. So again, I did what I often do - I just laid the Selkie story across the top. That's where a lot of the film images came in such as the film of her underwater: that was where she was at her happiest and most natural. She finds herself in this seemingly happy world, but can barely breathe in it. I loved that it told me which poems to use.