Naturally, it doesnt stay frozen for long…

I was in Hollywood trying to make my first feature, and then I met with Zach Snyder.

Then the [financial] crisis hit, and it fell through.

They were quite supportive, actually.

But to my surprise, they were okay with Europeans playing Norwegians rather than Americans.

They said, Oh its fine, you know?

So they were really supportive, actually.

I understand that, when you first got involved, Ronald D Moore had written the script.

What was his script like, and what changed from his to the one you eventually shot with?

It became almost an extra character.

That was not something we would change.

Obviously, the big thing youve introduced in this film is Mary Elizabeth Winsteads character.

So it sort of seemed logical that the character should be female.

It came out of a comparison to John Carpenter, and that changes the dynamic completely, of course.

It wasnt that rough [group of] blue-collar guys, but proper scientists.

One of the things I liked about this film was the way you shot it.

There arent lots of modern fast cuts and shaky cameras.

It looks like Carpenters film while still having a look of its own.

What was your intention?

I wasnt trying to copy I think its just my style.

I sort of like that easy, quiet way of telling stories.

And I thought it would work better if you just observe the characters a little better.

What part would he have played?

We deleted that whole part, so it sort of fell through.

What was the atmosphere like on the set?

I know on Carpenters film, it was quite tough, because they had refrigerated sets and so on.

For me, it was a natural cultural difference to the American actors, which really helped.

The way they approached things, the way they expressed themselves.

And then the Norwegians would always joke with other people.

There was already this separation, so I exploited that a little bit.

But it was fun it didnt feel like a Hollywood movie.

The important thing was creating that atmosphere of paranoia.

Did your actors bring their own ideas to how theyd portray their characters?

And you know why?

Everyone who was part of this saw and loved John Carpenters movie.

We saw the movie all together before we started.

So it all felt very natural it was already familiar to everybody.

What was it like to shoot those, as a hybrid of practical and CG?

Well, the initial plan slightly naive, maybe was to build everything practically.

Theyre reacting to what theyre seeing you dont have to explain to the actor what theyre seeing.

Although we shot the film practically, at the end of the day, it didnt hold up.

So we enhanced it with CG.

So what percentage of effects, in the end, were computer generated?

Did you overlay quite a few of them?

Everything was there, except for the last creature, which came up in a reshoot, actually.

Was that the reason why it was delayed from its original launch slot?

We juggled the story a bit.

How did that come about?

Was it in the script from the beginning?

Yeah, it was always there.

I studied a lot into how they drill into mammoth corpses in the ice in Siberia.

That was an easy suspense scene, actually.

Was that just shot on-set?

Yeah, it was literally just a block of ice.

But yeah, its definitely a suspenseful element.

Its something Ive often wondered.

Is it just an animal, or is it more sophisticated?

For me, it was always an extremely sophisticated predator.

A highly designed, engineered, intelligent virus.

It does everything it can to survive or multiply its self.

It has no true form.

It starts like a virus, and uses its hosts to spread.

So on a very basic level, its very effective.

Matthijs van Heijningen Jr, thank you very much.

The Thingis out on DVD and Blu-ray on Friday in the UK.