Biography

[press conference for Sleeping Beauty (2011) at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival] It's always very hard to pinpoint any specific inspiration; what I can say is of course we have the fairy tale that leaves a deep impression on us whether we know it or not - we carry fairy tales with us. We have the ancient practice of older men seeking the comfort of young women during the night, for example King Solomon in the Bible sought to spend the night alongside sleeping young virgins. I think I actually read that Gandhi tested his chastity by sleeping beside young virgins. And you have a sort of shady internet world of sleeping girls, two very well-known novellas from the point of view of older men who pay to spend the night with young girls - it's their story, their point of view. These are just elements in the air, and then a different, odder, more personal connection was after my first novel was published - I was sort of exposed in a way - I contracted this terrible nightmare that I was being filmed in my sleep. It was a very effective nightmare because the dreamer is dreaming that they're asleep in their own bed, when in fact they are asleep in their own bed - the lines become very blurred. So this idea that something could be happening to you while you're asleep but you don't really know what it is, which is something that sort of accumulates in Lucy's life in the film - it has this odd connection with a dream that I had.