Simon Beaufoy

India is desperately romantic, utterly unashamed of its sentimentality, its generosity, its fierce pride and massive heart.

As a child growing up in a grey-skied Yorkshire village, I would occasionally happen upon a Bollywood movie on the television. After a few minutes watching a bunch of sari-clad dancers cavorting on a Swiss mountain to tuneless music, I would switch over to some proper drama about housing estates and single mothers.

I guess my approach to adapting books is to treat them with a deep respect on one level and at another level part them to one side and go, 'I'm doing something completely different here.'

You do need people. You can't live without them. We're all interconnected in some way.

For me, as a writer who comes from quite a naturalistic tradition, British screenwriting is quite delicate, quite small, and rarified in a way.

In the midst of global recession, in the face of uncertainty about what's going to happen next, film looks for inspiration to real people.

You write who you are somehow. Even if you try to not to. You can't help but write who you are. I'm just not a very cynical person. I believe in the humanity of people, whether it is just the guys in 'The Full Monty' or Aron Ralston.

I believe innately in the human spirit being a powerful and positive thing. And that just comes out, whether you like it or not. It comes out in the writing.

I'm a documentary filmmaker by training. You got to start with the real people and the real place.

What's important in the filmmaking process has stayed the same. Keep it small, keep it personal, keep it authentic, work with people you like and trust. That process is much longer than the filmmaking process. The development process is a long one, so try and say something of importance.

There isn't a more important issue in the world than global warming. Even the Cold War and the Bay of Pigs crisis were a notional threat.

When you make a movie, a dramatization based on the real experience of a living subject, you can't airbrush that away into to a perfect movie arc.

If you don't have to get out of bed and do something every morning, that's kind of a curse.

The poorest people are so incredibly poor, and the rich are so incredibly rich on the other side. That is a kind of fascination.

'Slumdog Millionaire' is a fairy tale, but it starts in a place you really believe, and that came from spending two months wandering around the slums picking up stories and talking to people.

I'm not into being all 'film-y' and going to the premieres and parties. I tend to feel like the embarrassing uncle at a wedding.