BEN WHEATLEY

If you judge everything by how photographically real it looks, then you're missing out on a lot of what art is about and what communication is. There are ambiguities in life, and that should be reflected in art, cinema, and storytelling, I think.

You can muscle your way to the top as long as you're part of the production, which I am. I'm knitted into the money, so it's very hard to extricate me from the decision-making dynamic.

'Doctor Who' is pretty dark, I think. Generally it's dark; it's always been dark.

Lots of crime films are about work. Free Fire could have been about a company of plumbers doing pipe-fixing and stuff. But the plumbing film is not so exciting.

I think a big part of my job is to make an atmosphere on set and have an attitude that it's about experimentation, and you can't do anything wrong. It's not about judgment, it's not about me kicking over a chair and storming onto set and acting stuff out and telling people to copy what I do. That is a style of directing some people have, but I don't understand it.

The reality of any location in Britain being used in a TV program of a film is that something bad is going to happen! That's the nature of drama. Most of the things that get made or basically grisly detective shows about murders, accidents or medical dramas.

If I'd been offered 'Spider-Man,' I probably would have done it. I don't think it's bad to go and do those things.

You really have to be careful with the clues you lay into the film - if they're too heavy-handed, or you've pandered to a slightly stupider audience, then you've spoiled it for the people who are even slightly smart.

I think CGI is interesting, but it's too expensive and limiting in terms of what you can do shot-by-shot.

Sometimes my scripts get so dissolved, and they're so different from when I wrote them originally, that I find it hard to find what I wrote in it.

The only genre I have any problem with is musicals, but that's just my own tastes it's nothing to do with the films.

There's no way you can shoot low-budget stuff on lots of locations. It's just a practicality thing because every time you move, it costs time and money.

You really have to be careful with the clues you lay into the film - if they're too heavy-handed, or you've pandered to a slightly stupider audience, then you've spoiled it for the people who are even slightly smart.

The things that inspire people to think are what keeps a film alive.

If you judge everything by how photographically real it looks, then you're missing out on a lot of what art is about and what communication is. There are ambiguities in life, and that should be reflected in art, cinema, and storytelling, I think.

The reality of any location in Britain being used in a TV program of a film is that something bad is going to happen! That's the nature of drama. Most of the things that get made or basically grisly detective shows about murders, accidents or medical dramas.

I think CGI is interesting, but it's too expensive and limiting in terms of what you can do shot-by-shot.

The whole idea of genre and categorising films is a critic's construct. For me, I just try and make stories and see where they go, but there's nothing wrong with horror; there's nothing wrong with romantic comedies.

'Doctor Who' is pretty dark, I think. Generally it's dark; it's always been dark.

If I'd been offered 'Spider-Man,' I probably would have done it. I don't think it's bad to go and do those things.

You can muscle your way to the top as long as you're part of the production, which I am. I'm knitted into the money, so it's very hard to extricate me from the decision-making dynamic.

Lots of crime films are about work. Free Fire could have been about a company of plumbers doing pipe-fixing and stuff. But the plumbing film is not so exciting.

If you make a movie in the UK you've got to embrace the weather with open arms... We got some of the most amazing weather as well. It's maybe why some of these places, like the Lake District, don't get filmed in so much. If you were trying to make it look like some kind of chocolate box image of England you'd be there all year waiting for the sun to come out.

I genuinely try to make movies I'd want to go and see, movies that are a bit more challenging.

People say, "How do you get into the British film industry?" There is no British film industry, there are just people making films and finding their own way. It's not like in the States where there are studios and there's an actual infrastructure to it; there's just nothing here. You make it from scratch a lot of the time.

I tend to shoot really quick so you don't get the problems you might get on a traditional film where you shoot one way, then another, and it's pissing down with rain and they won't cut together. We shoot so fast we can incorporate the weather into it. The worst weather we had was when they were in the caravan up the mountain and there was no cover. One man's weather is another man's production value. To create the sleet would cost a fortune but we got it for free so we'll just have to go with it.

I've had pretty much the same crew for all the films that I've made, and I've managed to have really nice, calm, funny people. That is a big part of it, a family feeling of warmth and finding something interesting and making a platform for them to perform. It's a very difficult job, acting, in that it's totally counterintuitive to how we are brought up.

Film is more of a dream when you're younger. I found it almost impossible to see how you would get into the industry having no connections, nobody in the family being anywhere near it and never meeting anybody that had been on a set.

I like that confusion when people are speaking in the same language but still can't understand each other. It's also usually my experience of being in America - when I speak no one can understand what I'm saying.

Sometimes my scripts get so dissolved, and they're so different from when I wrote them originally, that I find it hard to find what I wrote in it.

I think a big part of my job is to make an atmosphere on set and have an attitude that it's about experimentation, and you can't do anything wrong. It's not about judgment, it's not about me kicking over a chair and storming onto set and acting stuff out and telling people to copy what I do. That is a style of directing some people have, but I don't understand it.

Society is about masks and hiding and pretending to be something that you're not and not opening up, and in acting, you do all of those things, but it also shows the performers in a very raw state. They have to literally upset themselves to get to that position sometimes. You don't need a load of people judging you or not being interested in what you're doing or being an ass on set because it ruins it.

If an actor commits properly to a role, they do a bit mad during a shoot. If they're going to do that, they should balance themselves by doing a role as a yoga teacher.

I'm very superstitious about going on other people's sets. You have to ask permission of the director; you shouldn't just turn up and skulk about in the background. It's very rude. You have to ask them personally. It's like a vampire being invited into a house.

It's part of developing the whole state of how cinema is; everyone is looking out and engaged rather than it being just a financial thing or sitting back, waiting for scripts to turn up.