ABI MORGAN

I had a huge interior world as a kid: I'd sit on endless wet holidays in Cornwall playing with paper dolls.

I'm so straight and boring, really. I have two kids and a very nice partner.

I try to stay focused on the work and recognize that I've been very lucky. Maybe it's 'cause I grew up with actors, but I've seen that recognition comes and goes, so all there really is is your family and friends. You have to maintain those constants in your life. Maintain what's beyond your work.

What's great about the way 'Shame''s been received is that I kept on thinking there's no way this film will be received well since I've had such a good time.

'Splendour' broke through to new territory for me. It exposed my commitment to writing for women: my desire to recognise that they can be as aggressive, violent, mercurial, and complex as men.

Of all the mediums, theatre is the one where you really need to have something to say - because it's just you, the words, and the space.

I never get writer's block, but I do have days where I crawl under the duvet.

I spent most of the Seventies living in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and most of the Eighties living in Stoke-on-Trent.

To be honest, if I was going to have any kind of fantasy, be it left-wing or otherwise, it wouldn't involve Margaret Thatcher.

The notion of having your muse was not something that was built for women originally. That's not to say women don't have muses. I get muses in terms of actors or writers who inspire me, so I understand the concept.

Usually when I write a movie, I'm lucky if I get one good actress.

I used to listen to 'Woman's Hour' every morning, but I've discovered that I can't have words on when I'm working.

I think I'm always running away from somewhere, and to me, theatre's always felt like a good place to run away to.

I literally grew up in drama. I used to watch drama - the catharsis of the play - then see drama at home.

I like bowling with my kids at Shoreditch House.

The thing I love about London is that it is filled with migrants, including myself.

I work from about 8:30 A.M. until 7 P.M., five days a week, when I'm not sneaking off to buy another bar of chocolate.

I'm quite interested in doing a film about fashion. As someone with no fashion taste whatsoever, I think it would be good for me.

I think film and television - particularly film - you are very isolated as a writer. If you're lucky, you have a good relationship with the director. Then you do make that development and come on set and be part of something. But ultimately, your work is kind of done by the time you come on set.

Even if you've been a coward all your life, death is a heroic act.

If you're dealing with a powerful leader, you're inevitably going to have a dialogue with her political past. It was always my intention to interrogate Thatcher's political life.

I need to be in charge, and that comes from when I was growing up and money was always an issue. I didn't want to feel the fear of poverty again, and I suppose, in that way, I qualify as Thatcher Youth.

I talk to myself all the time - it's something my children have observed in the car.

I hope my pieces have an authenticity to them, but my job is to filter the world and tell a story, not to define and recreate exactly what's going on.

Feminism isn't just for women. It's for men.