The pacing is deliberately slow. Why was that?

PH: It's a very pensive story but at the same time I wanted it to be a murder mystery. It's about a man who's very thoughtful and who doesn't talk a lot. He's just slowly, doggedly trying to get to the truth. I was trying to mirror him and his journey. I shot it like a classic American... almost a Western. If you look at John Ford's movies, like The Searchers , it's very similar in tone and feel.

Tommy Lee Jones has a reputation for not suffering fools, so how was your experience of working with him?

PH: He was great. He's not an easy man by any stretch, but I'm not an easy man, so we worked out great together [laughs]. If you get his respect and you keep it, then you're fine. He just needs to feel safe, like any actor, and that they can experiment in order to give you what you need. He was marvellous - but so was Charlize, Susan, Jason and Josh.

Can you tell us anything about the next Bond film?

PH: Sure, no I can't [laughs aloud].

But how does it feel to be a part of such a great franchise?

PH: Oh I love it. I love writing and participating in the screenplays. Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson are wonderful producers - they really know the franchise really well. And Martin Campbell, who directed Casino Royale, was great to work with and now we have Marc Forster, who's a brilliant director, working on this one. So I really, really love digging into that character and asking some tough questions of him, who I so deeply admired and loved from when I was a kid. It's great fun for me.



What do you think of the trend for war against terror movies?

PH: I'm very proud to be among them. I think a lot of filmmakers were asking the same questions back in 2003, because it takes three or four years to make a movie - to write it, produce it and get it out on screens. So, I'm terrifically proud to be part of those filmmakers.

How do you choose which projects you're going to write and which projects you're going to direct?

PH: Projects tend to choose me. I get some questions gnaw at me and I know I really want to make that movie - and I know I want to make it as a writer and a director, usually I want to see it through. It's usually something that people wouldn't make anyway! The ones I write are just because I love them. I'll write anything for Clint Eastwood, for example. He's a master filmmaker and I'm privileged to work with him. They're all easy decisions on my part.

Is it true that Clint has retired from acting?

PH: You know that's a good question. He told me that he wasn't going to act anymore. But then he said: "Well, maybe that's not true!" He might find something. But he said: "If I was going to go out there and say one film was my last film as an actor, then I don't think I can do better than Million Dollar Baby,do you Paul?" It's hard to argue with that. The thing with Clint is that he'll always surprise you. That's the marvellous thing about him. Whatever you think of him, you're wrong. He's just a man of contradictions and he loves surprising people.

You can't imagine anyone other than Tommy Lee Jones playing the part once you've seen it. How much of his personality went into the role?

PH: To me, it's not his personality so much as his acting ability. He just became this character so thoroughly. But that's what a great actor does. You look at Crash with Matt Dillon, and Sandra Bullock and Don Cheadle - all these actors you can't imagine anyone else playing the roles. That's what happens when you get great actors.

There's an incredibly poignant scene in the morgue after Susan Sarandon has been to see her son's remains for the first time. Was that one of the scenes you had to add once she'd sent the script back to you the first time?



PH: Yes, yes. Susan's character was... well, I knew she wasn't going to do the movie because her character was so tiny [at first]. But you always try, so I sent it to her, she read it and said she'd love to work on the movie but there were just no real scenes there for her. So, I suggested: "What if this character came to see her son?" And I wrote that sequence on my laptop while I was driving around in the front seat of a scout van looking for locations and sent it back to her, she loved it and said that she wanted to do it. And thank God I added it because it's one of the best scenes in the movie. She's just brilliant in it.

What were your cinematic inspirations for this?

PH: I didn't look at any other war films per se. I don't like doing that. Stylistically, John Ford's The Searchers - but Antonioni's Blowup was a big one for me. It was a big film that influenced me early on, so I went back and watched that.

How did you go about Roger Deakins as your director of cinematography - because he's very much the man of the moment following the acclaim he's been getting for Jesse James

PH: He's a brilliant filmmaker isn't he? I actually would have used James Muro, who I worked with on Crash, but he was off shooting something else. So I said: "Well, who would I love to work with? Who's a great cinematographer?" Roger was the first person I thought of and so I tried him. I knew he would turn me down because he's really busy and this was a small movie, but he said: "Ok, I'll do it!" I said: "Really?" It seemed remarkable that he would sign on, so I added: "You know this is a small budget film?" And he said: "Yeah, yeah, we'll figure it out..." But it was the same with the actors. They all did it out of passion, no one got their fee. But that's what I love about working on films like this - people are doing it for the right reasons rather than for the pay cheque. It makes such a difference.