Grey Owl, I think, was the ultimate actor. Here was a man who grew up in Hastings, as a young boy dreamed of becoming an Indian and eventually did travel to North America to become an Indian, he became a Ojibwe Indian.

But he was also an environmentalist. He was an environmentalist before they knew what environmentalists were. He was a drunkard, he was a bigamist, he was as I say, the ultimate actor because he fooled so many people. He travelled England, he travelled America, he went on stage to the sounds of Moonlight Sonata in his full robes. And yet he came from Hastings! His name was Archie Belaney, and here he was as Grey Owl, so I thought it was quite funny and I thought it was very endearing and I thought it was quite a magical story.

So it worked on many levels, it worked on the level of me going away to play an Indian - and I just said yes to it and then realised I had to have braids. Having done the research, having lent myself to the whole character, I thought Oh my God, I've kind of said yes, but now I do have to have the pigtails.

And then of course, you throw Richard Attenborough in there as well. Lord Attenborough, film maker, humanitarian, and that was a big treat. That was a big joy to work with him and to watch this man who is such a great age, and yet the stamina, the passion for film, the passion for actors, and the community of film is extraordinary.

I don't know if this is true, but I read that there were some aspects of Archie Belaney's life story, certainly the childhood, that kind of mirrors your own. Is that true and did that help you?

My childhood wasn't as bleak as his. My childhood was very rich in many ways. I grew up in Southern Ireland, on the River Boyne, and I grew up in nature, surrounded by nature, and I knew what it was like to have family and not have family and I knew what it was like to have that fracture in a childhood where you don't have a father figure. I have a great mother, but I didn't have a father figure and I knew what it was like to live with the aunts and I knew what it was like to live with the uncle. So there was a certain sympatico there towards his earlier years. You live in the imagination and luckily I lived in the imagination on a beautiful river in Southern Ireland in the countryside. So that was fantastic.

The movie has not been released in the US, it's gone straight to DVD...

Itt broke my heart that it didn't get a screening here. Because I thought how shallow of them. What went wrong? How? But you have to let that one go, and there are people who have seen the film, a number of people. As I was standing waiting for a plane the other day, seething actually because I'd missed it, scowling away, this business man and wife came up and they said we want to thank you for this film. And I just thought well there you go. So be it. If it touches some people out there, it moves them to want to do something about where they live, the community they're in, the world at large, the deforestation of the land, the pollution that's going into the oceans, then that is great. If it's only one or two people, then so be it.

Is it true you're a member of the Forest Stewardship Council?

Yes. I have children and it's for them, and for my children's children, that's really what it's about.