Did you get posh food and fancy trailers like on most big budget movie sets?

I don’t think we had catering. I didn’t have catering (laughs) we had a little place where we could go up in the Reef bar in Waterloo, it wasn’t like anything too special. At lunch time they just fetched you a sandwich from somewhere.

We didn't break for lunch for an hour or anything like that. There wasn’t time to have a lot of breaks when we were shooting my scenes at Waterloo, as time was too restricted. So it didn’t have that 'movie feel' to it, it just felt like a big independent movie to me. I like shooting in real locations and places, so this was the perfect situation for me.

When you're filming in a public place with commuters who are not part of the movie but end up in shot, do you need to get their consent for appearing in the movie?

Well, I thought so. I thought that they’d have to fill in a release form. But apparently it's enough to put big signs up to say 'if you walk past here you may end up in a movie', that sort of thing. There has got to be something, otherwise it is just too ridiculous.

This must be one of the reasons that the film looks so real.
Yeah, it does and the performances as well.
I know that you've directed short films. Do you want to direct more in the future, and who are your heroes as far as directors go?

am a big Alan Clarke fan, who I know is a big influence on Paul Greengrass. I love Martin Scorsese and I love the work of people that I have worked with like Paul Greengrass, Shane Meadows and Jim Sheridan.

When you work with directors like Jim, you learn so much from watching them work. I want to direct movies. I have sort of been in a place in my head, for about a year, where I sort of lost it a bit. I have kind of fallen in and out of love with the whole filming process, but this was a particular period where I thought ‘You know what, I have had it with this’.

Why?

Well, not all directors are good and you find yourself in a situation that you're not happy with. There was one film in particular [Bosque de sombras] it was just so heartless that I was just like ‘I can’t do this anymore, this is not what I want to do with my life’.

But while I was on the job I wrote my short film and in my brain it was like ‘put your money where your mouth is, you have always said you were going to direct, so: do it!!'

I was working with Gary Oldman at the time, and he sort of helped me through the bad experience I had on this particular film. He encouraged me to write my short film. He read my script and said ‘it's good, you’ve got to make it’.

Who's in your film?

I managed to get Peter Mullan for the lead he was my first choice. And I made it, and my agent was very good with it as well. My agent was quite instrumental in making it happen, actually saying ‘when are you going to get your directing started?’ and I was like ‘Yeah, yeah, later this year I think’.

I was in Toronto and I bumped into Peter on the street and he said ‘I love your script and I would love to do it’. Half an hour later I was sat in a bar talking to a woman from Scottish Screen who was really keen to be involved.

I shot it in January [2007] and it was quite liberating, it is more comfortable for me to director than to act. There are still flaws in my film but I can take more pleasure looking at it than looking at myself performing.

It must be nice to see the other side of film making and be behind the camera for a change?

Yes and I often find that actors make really good directors. Gary Oldman directed the most amazing film ever by a British director, as far as I am concerned, Nil By Mouth is a masterpiece. Then you’ve got Peter Mullan who has directed Orphans, which I absolutely loved, and then he did The Magdalene Sisters. He has done a lot of short films too. There are a lot of people who are actually big inspirations to me who acted and then went into directing and kind of move from each thing. And then you think ‘I want to do that’. I don’t want to act forever or at least I don’t want to act all the time.

What's in your DVD collection?

I watch a lot of kid’s movies, I love them.

Do you find that kids movies differ now from when you grew up?

It’s funny because my boys watch the films that I watched when I grew up. They love the Jungle Book and Peter Pan. It is pretty much the same movies that I loved as a kid. As I got a little older I got in to Star Wars and Superman, you know, live action adventures. I still love that too.

So you were you into the superhero movies as a kid?

Yeah, I loved Superman, there wasn’t a lot around then and I think Superman was the real flagship of an excellent superhero movie. I loved that.

What do you think of movie merchandize for kids movies?

Star Wars changed that, there has always been a little bit of merchandise but that just absolutely went through the roof.

The Boune Ultimatum is released 10th December.

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