Your role in "Gabriel & Me" is very complex. How did you approach it?

Through research. I don't know anyone who's suffered lung cancer. I spoke to a lot of people, who were willing to talk, who were suffering from it. The statistics are scary. You really are being quite foolish to smoke. It was a rude awakening because I'm a smoker myself and of course I smoked myself into oblivion to make sense of the story. So I vowed to give up.

How did you find the return to small scale film-making after the big budget experience of "Tomb Raider"?

It's refreshing to get back to what's familiar. They are polar opposites. A big budget studio film is slower, they've got so much to create around you. Everything is more complicated. And then you're plucked out of your trailer to work occasionally. It's hard to keep the focus. But you accept that because it's about the action and special effects. Something like "Gabriel & Me" is so dependant on the actors. The relationships and storytelling happen through them. I'd be very happy to make two or three films like that a year. I don't crave Hollywood. It's a different beast altogether.

What was it like working with Billy Connolly?

I've always admired him. It's a treat. I remember being at the Edinburgh Festival years ago and going to one of those awful parties and Billy staggering in drunk. He had us all in stitches. I fell in love with him then.

And Sean Landless, who plays your son in the film, do you think he understood the dark undercurrents of the plot?

I think he did for his role. He's at that cusp, as a young guy, inhabiting without having to embrace the notion that he should be acting too strongly. He's very lovely and true.