I had always been wary of doing any autobiographical movies, truly feeling at home with fiction.

I became obsessed with the true stuff, and that led to shaping 'The Way Back' screenplay somewhat toward a minimalist style, to avoid free-hanging moments, and to hold the music back, so it would never lead you to an emotion, and to try to make the emotions as real as I could.

You can mix in certain sensitivities as a filmmaker.

I loved Sherlock Holmes as a kid, but I remember being disappointed when he'd come up with these simple explanations for these complex mysteries.

Various studios are still shooting on film with digital grain and the DI negatives, it's not ideal. We should really be all film or all digital. But that being said, the old way of graining in the camera, now you can make changes like a painter. It's dangerous because you can ruin the film, you can over-fiddle. We've all seen films and gone 'what the hell is that?'

When I began making films, they were just movies: 'What's the new movie? What are you doing?' Now they're called 'adult dramas.'

I don't know if there will ever be an ideal way of selling an original picture. Because everything you're doing, you're inventing.