You've got to work. You've got to want an audience to sit forward in their chairs sometimes, rather than sit back and be bombarded with images.

In 2008 Mendes directed Revolutionary Road starring his then-wife Kate Winslet along with Leonardo DiCaprio and Kathy Bates. He spent his first two years overseeing the redesign of the theatre and his opening production was Stephen Sondheim's Assassins in 1992. Soon he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company where his productions many of them featuring Simon Russell Beale included Troilus and Cressida Richard III and The Tempest.

Samuel Alexander "Sam" Mendes CBE (born 1 August 1965) is an English stage and film director. In 2000 Mendes was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II for "services to drama" and in 2005 received a lifetime achievement award from the Directors Guild of Great Britain.