Every film I make I feel like I am getting a mini-masters degree, it's a wonderful life path and you get to immerse yourself in an intriguing world for a couple of years.

Bobby Fischer was hugely important for the American chess community because it put chess on the map - he made it possible for other chess players to make a living.

I think all of us, looking back on our careers and our lives, there'll probably be a road not taken that we'll regret and mourn. Certainly, artists will always feel that way, especially when the path taken was more commercial than the one not taken.

Managers all over the world will go crazy when their artists are not touting the party line and making things pretty in the way that they're supposed to, but it's different when your manager is your husband. It's contrary to your soul. That commercial interest presses in upon your whole personal life.

In the Soviet Union, for instance, the pressure on the chess stars was immense. When Boris Spassky came home after losing that match, he found he no longer had an apartment in Moscow.

I think the combination of genius and celebrity, in the case of Bobby Fischer, was a dangerous cocktail.