How did your approach to Panic Room change when Nicole Kidman dropped out and Jodie Foster came in? Nick, Newcastle

Every actor has their own personality and they fill the room in a different way. Nicole is a very glamorous icon, and Jodie is a different kind of icon. The characters that she's played are indicative of a very feisty intelligence. The part was originally written for someone who's a little more lost, so modifications had to be made to the script in order for it to make sense for somebody who's more capable.

And what made you choose Jodie? She was going to be involved in The Game at some point, wasn't she? Shelley Jones

She was involved in The Game early on, but we couldn't work out... anything. We couldn't work out the scheduling or what we were trying to do, so she went away from that. Why Jodie? A number of reasons. A, I'm a big fan. B, when you talk about replacing somebody in a film, a lot of thought has already gone into what's happening around them - who the other faces are, the tone of the movie, things like that. It's very rare to find somebody who goes: "I'm ready to go, let's go next Wednesday."

You had a lot of directors in the cast (Jodie Foster, Forest Whitaker, Dwight Yoakam). How did that go? Lauri Warsta

It's great, I recommend it! For anyone who's directing a movie, direct directors! It's funny, because the only non-director on the set was always the one going, "I don't know, why would I...?" All the directors just go "Fine", because they know you've only got so much time.

Have you got anything planned for the DVD release of Panic Room? John Monaghan

Nothing yet, nothing planned. We'll let the materials lead the way. A lot of behind-the-scenes stuff, because we documented that pretty well, John Dorsey was always around with his camera. But I go into movies going, "How do I get through the shoot?" I don't really think about the DVD until afterwards.

There are rumours about you doing a DVD version of The Game...

No. It's funny. I got a call from Criterion [the specialist DVD producer in the US] and they left a message saying, The Game? I don't know what there would be to do, though. I don't think there's a lot of material.

And would you revisit Alien³?

I have no interest in seeing that movie preserved! I remember, I was finishing the movie during the LA riots, and I was just hoping that DeLuxe [a film laboratory in LA] would be burned to the ground. "Is all the negative at DeLuxe? Oh thank God, thank God!"

Your films ooze technique and visual sophistication. However, have you ever considered working with any of the new digital formats, or perhaps making a Dogme film? Richard Ashby

We talked about doing Panic Room in High Def, but the problem is, in these really enclosed spaces, the camera is huge, you can't stick it where you want. I'm all for it. There is a movie we were going to do about female bodybuilding which we were going to do in High Def. I think it's horses for courses.

Have any of the movies you've made come out better than you expected? Montserrat

No.

So which one were you most satisfied with?

You know, it's like saying, "Who are your favourite children?" I don't know. Alien³. I don't even consider. I like Se7en, but I don't think it's my best film. I like The Game, I think it's a little misguided from what it was supposed to be, and it's misinterpreted - people thought it was more serious than it was intended to be. I like Fight Club a lot, I'm very proud of that. I like Panic Room, but I also think Panic Room is one of those little guilty pleasure popcorn movies. Scott Rudin [the producer] called me and said, "I saw your movie, I loved it. It's a cheesy popcorn movie produced within an inch of its life." I thought, I'd like to see that on the poster.

You're attached to a lot of projects in development...

Not that many. Four or five... The Black Dahlia [an adaptation of the James Ellroy crime novel]; Rendezvous With Rama [an adaptation of the Arthur C Clarke sci-fi novel]; Mission: Impossible 3 [self-explanatory!]; Lords Of Dogtown [about West Coast skateboarders in the 70s]; and Seared [a kitchen sink drama - literally].

So, which one are you going to direct next?

I don't know. I have a new script coming in for Rama, and we're working on developing a script called Stay [about a psychologist who tries to prevent one of his students from committing suicide], which may or may not pan out to be... there's a big twist at the end which I think is problematic for an audience to buy - given my experience on Fight Club. Rama is a really good script, but the technology may not exist to pull it off, because it's almost 95% CGE [computer-generated effects], even for the human faces. I think we'll motion-capture human faces and put them into spacesuits and make it completely photo-realistic. The first half of it takes place in total darkness.

You talked about doing that on Panic Room...

We talked about it, and we shot a lot of digital stills, but it was just asking too much of an audience to sit still for a scene where you can barely make out the people talking. I like the idea of doing that, and maybe you can do it in small doses, because that's what a house is like in the middle of the night.

You had final cut on Panic Room. Do you now have it on all of your movies? James Goldman

We had to give it up on Fight Club to get the movie financed, and didn't have it on The Game, but nobody changed anything we wanted to do. You know, in most cases you don't need it. It's all a question of what you want to fight for, what you want to hold out for. It's important to me because I think it levels the playing field. If final cut is held by the studio, it's often the case that you have to tell them why they shouldn't maul your movie, as opposed to meeting face to face and discussing the movie honestly. Or as opposed to "You've already ****** this up, why shouldn't we just bring Stuart Baird in and finish it off the right way?!"

Is there one film you watched that made you want to be a director? Gordon Paterson

Yep, Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid. Not only because I loved the movie - and it's probably still my favourite all-time movie - but because I was eight-years-old and at about the same time that I became aware of this movie being in theatres, I saw a documentary on the making of it. The documentary talked you through the whole thing, and I was kinda like, "Wow! These are adults building full-scale balsawood trains, just to blow them up! How do you get involved in that?"

Given Hollywood's trend of remaking movies, could you imagine a studio remaking one of your movies in 20/30 years' time? Jon Pritchard

No. In all honesty, and not in a self-deprecating way at all, I think the movies I make are trifles. They're footnote movies. I'm not making big important movies, I'm not making Bridge On The River Kwai. I'm not dealing with big noble themes. But again, I couldn't imagine somebody wanting to remake Psycho, so maybe I'm wrong. I just can't imagine Hollywood getting that desperate!