Casting is always critical but in this case, 'The Way Back', I was looking internationally to a degree for an interesting mix of gentlemen, Irish, Polish, Russian and American. Not many people had the qualifications, people who would play the game, particular to this industry. So I had to research amongst the cast. They had to be very very prepared as we had to start shooting as soon as we could, there wasn't any time to talk, and there would only be three or four takes.

The smallest detail can contribute to the whole, I think particularly with emotion, you want it to be as authentic as it can, whether its a artifact or a theatrical event. But the whole is the sum of so many images.

Silent films were, I think, more different than we know to sound films. We think of it as simply that we added dialogue and in actual fact I think it was an entirely different art form.

I've become wary of interviews in which you're forced to go back over the reasons why you made certain decisions. You tend to rationalize what you've done, to intellectually review a process that is often intuitive.

In 'The Way Back' survivors were all ordinary people, and that's the whole point, that's who I felt these people should be, and they shouldn't be that hero that stands out.

I think Ed Harris is a conscious screen actor, so I think it was strong, it was like he put everything together somehow in 'The Way Back'. He likes, I don't want to say the method approach, because that's not really necessarily his way of working, but it was easy to do because of the location. He'd go off by himself, and they would make things.

I'm not from a theatre background, I'm wary of rehearsals. But what I do like is hanging out together, on location.