Why did you choose to do "There's Only One Jimmy Grimble"?

I had done the Bond film, "The World Is Not Enough", and I was running away from stuff. I picked up the "Grimble" script, read it, and put all the others in the bin. There's no explosions, no guns. I wanted to get back to that, to that size of film. The intimacy of a small film in a room. The softness and the quietness of the character I loved. I understood him.

Your character is an ex-Manchester City player. What sort of research did you do?

I spent a lot of time speaking to ex-players, like Peter Barnes, an England international who played for Man City and Man United. He told me a story about one particular player, which was poignant. When he talked about how he couldn't play again, it broke his heart. Imagine being 19 years old and playing in front of 40,000 every week, and having it taken away from you. It was very easy to find that sadness, very easy to find that sense of a life lost.

You've just shot "To End All Wars" . What was that about?

The short cut is "Bridge Over The River Kwai"; that's exactly what it's about, but it's the true story of what happened to these men. I'd been offered a couple of war films. I didn't wanna get involved with that, glorifying it. I thought, if I'm going to do a war film, I want to do something that says war is pretty shitty.

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