If Copenhagen were a person, that person would be generous, beautiful, elderly, but with a flair. A human being that has certain propensities for quarrelling, filled with imagination and with appetite for the new and with respect for the old - somebody who takes good care of things and of people.

I don't think I can remember a moment in my life where people didn't discuss politics. People discuss politics at the table.

I say no to a lot of things that just don't fit my life. I involve my kids in what I'm struggling with so they don't compete with it.

We have a certain warped sense of humor in Scandinavia, and that is what comes across in the choices in a lot of our movies.

As an artist you actually do have to make a choice to be an outsider. If you're an outsider you have the freedom to say what people on the inside don't dare to say.

I absolutely refuse the fame part of my business. I refuse even the money side of my business. I try to do as good work as I can do, I try to grow in my art and reach for truth. That's what I want from my art, that's what I aspire to.

I love cities that are on the water. I love the water element, specifically the sea. I grew up on the sea and I grew up sailing - I love sailing - and the presence of the sea gives the air and the light a very special quality that I absolutely adore.

I trained with the FBI in Portland and I also had many conversations with female FBI agents in Los Angeles, as well. That was again something that also came in very handy for Basic, because I'd learned already how to handle a gun and how to behave just physically when you're in a situation, a threat. That was very good to know.

I try to combine my work with my family, that's what I aspire to. I don't say that's the only thing. It's not all work and family, because otherwise you would be saying no to the many other things in life and there are many other things.

I will always find something that I want to try and become better at. I always love to spend more time with my friends, more time with my family, my extended family. I always want to read more books.

I'm definitely more attracted to chaos than to order. The point is, I find the female roles out there very cliche. If we are limited to being only lovers or mothers, we are limiting ourselves.

If you asked somebody, 'what do you wish for in life?' they wouldn't say 'happiness.' I would have answered 'excitement, knowledge,' God knows - I mean, many, many different things, but certainly not 'happiness'. It seemed like a foreign concept to wish for something that specific and that singular.

Often when you get a really good script, and you receive the new pages, you see that the entire thing has been dumbed down. Films in the '30s and '40s, that were huge blockbusters, were very sophisticated in their language, and the ideas they brought. There were no questions about whether the audience would get it or not.

TV is a different animal these days. You can bring together really smart writing and directing, in-depth character development and really meaty political and emotional stories.

You think once you've shown what you can do, and your movies have been successful, that snap, you work. So to discover the difference between guys' roles and girls' roles made me plain mad. It's unjust.