I'm not from a theatrical background where people do like to work it out on some stage space.

Studios are attracted by making money, and they're also trying to simplify things, going with the genre thing. The gambling instincts of a few years ago where you might make some thousands or a few hundred, it's nothing now.

If I can't make the kind of film that I want to make, then the hell with it.

Sixty-five days principle photography, five-day weeks, which is the only way I'll work. With my cinematographer Russell Boyd, we take as much time as possible before pre-production, looking at stills. The next most important thing: he will come to me and talk about lenses. And I'll see his plan, which is generally great, and I might talk about how the light will be, handheld or not? I talk very freely, and try not to talk specifically, just talk around it, because it can unlock all sorts of things.

You get very little from the studios anymore, it's all independent. And I think the studio, with the exception of something like The Social Network, a fine film, very interesting, but as for studio pictures, that's it, what else? There was more only a few years ago. So it changes, and I'm trying as much as I can.

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.

The best conversation with Stanley Kubrick is a silent one: you sit in a theatre and watch his films and you learn so much.