In terms of this issue of these industrial gases affecting the environment, at the beginning the road was not easy, because we were suggesting that society had to change, that industries had to do something different than they were doing at that time. And of course, initially we did not meet with a good reception to these ideas from industry. And even from the scientific community — even though our ideas were well received in the small group of specialists in what we were doing — it was not necessarily well received by the scientific community at large. So we really had to continue doing as good a science as we could, and at the same time trying to well communicate our conviction that it was something important, something that had to change in the way society was functioning.

More than anything else, I had to combat the barriers, and we tore down those barriers. I just had to set a sail against the wind, those strong winds, to end segregation and racial discrimination, but somehow, in some way, I didn’t let those barriers keep me down.

Since 1973, I had written a few screenplays on feminist subjects, but nobody wanted them.

The studios are superreluctant to give final cut. They have so much money riding on these things, so they want a committee to go and rule the roost.

The only experience I’ve had, in the early 90s I was working in the theatre and I went through a very bad period, 3 or 4 years, of dread inducing panic attacks before going out on stage and then I got an international film career and they sort of disappeared [laughter].

They wanted it for its artistic value. I found that deeply moving.

A lot of my decisions are made by instinct – you have a hunch.

Being alone in a room with a tiger: a recurring dream, never reality, fortunately.

But, tough, I have fallen…flat before. You just get up and dust yourself off.

A panic attack on stage during The Importance Of Being Earnest. Well, it felt like death.