On being easy to fire...

I think this was 2017, maybe 2018. I had been trying to get this particular movie made for at least a decade. It was a good story, and people liked the script, but getting a thriller made in Britain is never easy and the movie had languished with a series of well-intentioned production companies and had never gained any traction.

I had recently signed with a US agent and the guys there really liked this script, and they thought they could get it going. But their hands were tied because it was under option in London. And so, on one fateful day, the option in the UK expired. I told my US reps that this was happening at midnight and they should see what they could do. Years of experience with this particular story had taught me to manage my expectations.

But I woke up the next morning to an e-mail from the US saying that they had got some interest from a studio. This studio not only wanted to pay me for the script, but they wanted to sign me up as director and they wanted to put the movie into production straight away. Astonishing…