When I was this young assistant at the University of Groningen my responsibility was for four beds, or rather the patients in four beds. That was all I had to do. And, one of these patients was a young man, 22 years old, who slowly and miserably died from renal failure. He became blind, he vomited, and it was a miserable death. And I, as a very, very young physician, had to tell his mother, in a black dress and a little white cap like the farmers have, that her only son was going to die. I couldn’t do a damn thing about it. So, I began to think, “If I could just every day remove as much urea as this boy creates, which is about 20 grams, then the boy could live.” Well, he died, but I began to work on that.

It’s like a kind of boiling kettle, you know: you don’t want to make your tea until the kettle’s boiled and it’s the same thing, you don’t want to make your movie until you’re boiling with something you need to say. And theater, for instance, has always given me the opportunity to wait for that moment. It’s the same with film actually — film has given me an opportunity to wait until I’m ready to do a play. One fuels the other. Even the decision to write and make 1917 , weirdly, came out of doing the Bond movies.

My videos are architecture for sets of ideas. The structure of the video houses those ideas.

It’s different for every project for me. Books are a combination of character, plot, and setting. And every book I write, I could point out and say, oh, there was the first idea . Usually they’re growing separately , a couple ideas for the plot, a couple seeds for characters. An idea for a magic system or a governmental structure. Those will be growing independently in my notes file. I know I have a book when these different elements start to meld together in my brain, and change each other in interesting ways. I’ll start to say, all right, these two ideas belong together. Here’s this character who belongs in this plot. Is there a setting that I’ve been developing that also enhances this?

It’s killing the planet. It’s killing you. It’s killing all of us. Walk away.

I really love structure and I think that one of the things I like so much about the theater is the routine. I’m looking forward to this play I’m going to do in London with Daniel Radcliffe, and just the idea that I’ll go to work at the same time every night and I know what I’ll be doing for the next few months. That’s so pleasing to me. I think everyone needs routine and structure in your life.

I do take a break, but I’ve also got – right now, I’m writing another book, another memoir [a follow-up to his bestselling book Not My Father’s Son: A Memoir], so even though I’m on a break technically, I’ve got that. I’ve got a production company so things are always rolling. I’m always spinning a lot of plates.

Biggest lesson; Treat people respectfully. There's a sort of vogue, and there has been for decades now, that the director is god and the director is all knowing.

I realized, I’m not doing it for the audience; I’m doing it for me. I like it. I want to be able to see if I can still do it. I want to see if I can challenge myself. I want to have a good time. With ‘Macbeth,’ I wasn’t finished with it. It wasn’t out of my system.

Anything new that’s got chemicals involved and radically alters your body, I’m not a fan. We should just love ourselves in whatever shape we are. Also, what about the poor people with diabetes who can’t get it now because all these fucking actors are shooting up?