As a mother of two, I felt strong affinity for Flightplan from the minute I heard about the story from Brian Grazer. What really moved me was the idea of a woman who has lost her child, and yet suddenly is forced to question her sanity.

When my grandfather died, I became curious about his history in the hope that it would somehow inform my own. I started to write a lot more and in particular about Ukraine. When I read Jonathan's story, I felt deeply connected to it. He had done in 15 pages what I had been trying to do in 100, and he had done it with humor.

Everyone has endured the problems that plague the Cobb family–the sense of loss that comes with growing up; the search for an authentic identity; the recognition of the limitations of our parents. This profound and heartbreaking appeal to our shared experience of growing up is what gives the film its uncommon power and humanity.

The chance to take on the pharmaceutical industry motivated me to do the film, as well as shooting on location in Kenya, and the originality of the love story between Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz.

Living in the South informs the pace of the movie. I don't find the clich?© of Southern slowness to be inapt. What I hope we reflect is the contemplativeness that sits in the slowness.