Michael Apted

"It is risky, in this cynical and mocking age, to make a determinedly traditional biopic … a film willing to focus on the good that men do."

"I think doing a documentary is one set of your muscles and doing a drama is another. You can learn from both of them -- how to place material, where you build it. I learned those lessons doing both documentaries and drama. Both of them helped the other; how to keep things interesting on camera when interviewing them, the same way you keep the actor of a drama alive and not just doing it by numbers. The dramas I do are usually character-driven. It’s very similar to doing a documentary; in a drama you’re always trying to build to something. I say to documentary directors to look at more dramas, to give it more wit so you don’t put one great thing at the beginning; structure the documentary to keep the audience’s interest. I learned a lot in documentaries about how to cut performances in dramas and to keep the audience on their toes."