“Is hopeful work going to stop stuff? I don't know, but is anything? So why not just make hopeful work?”

I mean, that's a hard one. But if an audience has come out having laughed a lot and learnt some stuff, particularly in this one about Chile or Patrice Lumumba in the Congo or whatever else, then all of that is what I'm after. And all of that is hopeful.

…often think of, there's a quote, I believe it's by Peter Cook, the British comedian. And he said, I'm just paraphrasing, I can't remember exactly, but he said something like, well, you know, the greatest satire in the world was in Weimar, Germany, and that's. Stops Hitler right in his tracks. It's

Might as well. I think of your work as dark and bleak. Dark and bleak. But also as the product of someone who, on some level, likes to provoke a reaction. Even if that feeling is, you know, sort of a recoil sometimes. Am I wrong about that too?

No, no. Recoil, I might question. I often think about this. But yeah, it's all quite provocative. It's never intentionally offensive. And I think, and it's often outrageous. And for instance, Malkovich's character in this is outrageous. But I don't think he or even the film is, or any of my stuff…

What's the difference between being outrageous and being offensive? Is one just a nicer word for the other?