What are the things she feels trapped by?
We have references to the insane asylum, references to drowning.
Theres a black liquid that swallows everything up, and in Freudian terms its sex and powerlessness.
I also wanted to have some allusions to the tattoos.
We wanted to have the dragon, and the phoenix.
It was a great opportunity, a melange of nightmarish imagery.
So I went to a friend of mine and said, youre an animator, youve got eight weeks!
In fact, the guy who did the title sequence, he and I were going to doHeavy Metal.
I know you were doing part of it.
Ridley [Scott], Jim Cameron… we had a lot of really great people.
It was just too expensive to do R-rated animation.
Ill buy my ticket now if it helps?
[Laughs] Alright!
Hes doing that now, isnt it?
Hes doing stuff with DreamWorks now.
Its probably not true, though!
Well, you talk about getting about 60 per cent of what you want on a film set.
I think thats probably on a good day.
Its about 75 per cent of what we wanted.
This movie is probably about that.
Presumably the Swedish weather didnt always help on this one?
Well, it informed it.
You needed to feel it.
I would have thought it was over the top had I not lived through it.
Did you shoot the Swedish material first, before coming back to the studio in the US?
We shot September to December, then we went back to the States and shot all the interiors.
And then we went back to Stockholm and we shot, Im going to say March through April.
That presumably contains any potential cultural leakage?
What do you mean?
I mean that the film feels distinct, and looks European.
Theres not a touch of Hollywood about it.
That was the hope.
Look, it cost more.
It cost more to make the movie, ironically, in Sweden.
Its a different animal.
Again, it was presented to me by Michael Lynton, Amy Pascal and Scott Rudin.
They said, read this book, its a Swedish book, its a gigantic book.
Its going to be a Swedish story, its R-rated, its for adults.
Were not sugar-coating it, thats why we came to you.
I took them at their word.
Its surprisingly swift in that sense?
It took six or seven years for you to getBenjamin Buttonmade…
Oh God, it took forever.Forever.
Its 500 pages and we want you to do it.
I said to her, Kathy, I cant do it tonight.
Can you tell me what its about?
I said, we just spent six years doing this, why are you doing this to me?!
So I didnt read it.
Did it work out better that way for you, though?
Well, it must have worked, given the film weve got now.
I can understand why: its a $150m movie, and everybody dies!
So I understand that thats a problem.
I understand why, economically, people didnt flock to make that movie.
Benjamin Button spoiler over
But its a debilitating process as a filmmaker.
Its an exhausting thing.
Im not a profligate filmmaker, I do things I things, I think, fairly economically.
I spend the money on the screen.
This movie costs $100m, its an expensive movie.
Its an expensive proposition.
Then they might be interested.
I want to sleep [grins].
David Fincher, thank you very much…
