[on
Living (2022)] I can take credit for having the original idea, because it was kind of an obsession of mine for years. It was partly because I was a Japanese kid growing up in England and I was always very interested in any Japanese film that was shown in England. From the age of 11 or 12, I was obsessed with the original Kurosawa movie,
Ikiru (1952). And as I got older, I had this idea that wouldn't it be great if someone made a version set in England. I just thought it would be a very interesting effect to put that story, the Kurosawa story, into a British setting just after the second World War. I could see it would become much more than just a remake. This was an idea I had for a long time, but I'm not a screenwriter, and I just hoped somebody else would make it. It was really in that spirit that I talked about it half-jokingly at a dinner party 3 or 4 years ago. It wasn't even a dinner party, it was a small gathering with myself and my wife and
Stephen Woolley and
Elizabeth Karlsen, the two producers. We called Bill
Bill Nighy on the telephone after we finished eating... [Dec. 2022]