“I can still, with my nieces and nephews, just say, [menacingly] ‘Who killed my sister!’ and they break into tears. They were young. It really scares most kids. If it scared me, I loved it. And it made me appreciate villains in films.”

Gurinder Chadha on It’s a Wonderful Life: “The reason it’s so powerful is: it makes you think. I lost my father a few years ago, and it had a profound effect on me. Bend It Like Beckham is dedicated to my dad. For me, it’s a film about life and death. For me, it brings up grief and that whole side about losing someone. But it’s also about an affirmation about what their life was about, and the pleasure that they gave in their life.”

“It’s obviously made at the absolute Everest of megalomania, the absolute peak of, ‘I can do nothing wrong, and I must just push myself.’ And that’s, of course, one of the things celebrated in the film. You do see a film made at the absolute edge of sanity, really.”

“If I’m taking inspiration, or if I’m going to blatantly rip off my favorite artists, I try not to make it quite so blatant; I try to bury it in the DNA of the text of my film.”