So when it was my turn to start developing projects, I knew the writers I wanted to work with, and I had met every head of studio, every executive and a lot of producers. I started finding things, little crumbs off other people's tables that I would make my own.

I think what we're trying to do as filmmakers is make a big, gritty, raw, epic movie and within that show things graphically in a way that they haven't been seen in that world before.

I read every screenplay that was being sent to the other directors. None were being sent to me, but I was reading what others were choosing and what the best writers were writing.

So when it was my turn to start developing projects, I knew the writers I wanted to work with, and I had met every head of studio, every executive and a lot of producers. I started finding things, little crumbs off other people's tables that I would make my own.

Well, I wasnt just kind of standing in a queue at McDonalds and someone sat down and said, Youre the director of a $100 million Hollywood movie. Ive been working in commercials for ten years.

I went to America with a very specific idea of what I wanted to do.

Trying to ground everything in reality was the most important thing to me.