ML: OK, let's take some questions from the audience.
Q1: I loved Crash, one of my favourite films and absolutely blew me away when I saw it. The scene which was really heart-stopping was the one between the locksmith and the store owner when they confront each other and the little girl comes out. Can you just describe directing that scene?
PH: I came upon that scene and I just sort of flowed out when I was cranking up the story originally. I was writing away and the locksmith was telling his daughter a story, to reassure her. And he used the phrase "impenetrable cloak". And I thought: "Oh damn. You don't put an impenetrable cloak in a movie and not use it." You have to use it and it has to work. So I thought, well how is that going to happen? It's impossible. And so I went back and started asking questions of the other characters, asking the Persian character how he has been treated and thought: What if he got a gun and, you know, used the blanks without realising it? Then you could actually have a confrontation with a gun being fired. And I knew that children love to protect us, and that if her father was in peril, she would protect him, and she was wearing an invincible cloak, so why not? And I knew it had to work at that point. It was fascinating to do that scene because I had two actors who had worked on it a lot and the scene was just awful. And Michael Pena, wonderful actor, but he didn't have a child, and he couldn't understand the concept of what had happened to his child when the gun went off. He wasn't getting it. So just before I grabbed him and pulled him straight to my face and make the loudest noise that I could over and over "bang" and throw him into the scene, and he was so shocked that he really got it. So sometimes you do different things to get reactions. And of course, Shaun Toub is a really skilled actor, Persian actor, and the little girl was great, wasn't she? In the scene where he was putting on the cloak I said to Michael: "If you see the cape, she'll see it". So he started putting it around her shoulders. And I said: "Michael, you just tied it around her hair, is that what you would do?" And so he lifted her hair and she saw it. She saw the cape.
ML: Ibsen said that if you see a gun in the first act it will go off in the third. You're disguising that, because the audience thinks it's going to see that happening. But you want to make it as surprising as possible the way it happens.
PH: Yes, the gun is going to go off but it's not the one you think is going to go off. It's going to go off somewhere, but it goes off in the least expected place.
Q2: There are parallels between Tommy Lee Jones's character in In the Valley of Elah and Clint Eastwood's character in Million Dollar Baby. Had you thought about offering it to Clint Eastwood? Or were you scared he would want to direct this one himself as well?
PH: I hadn't thought of that, but father and sons', father and daughters' relationships fascinate me: the guilt we live with as fathers. It certainly haunts me. I have four kids. I draw a lot from that. The relationship in Million Dollar Baby with the estranged daughter, that wasn't in the original short story. I drew that from my experience with my eldest daughter.
Q3: You seem to be very much an auteur as a director. How did you feel when you were approached to do Casino Royale, which has certain rules and regulations to it?
PH: I really thought I was going to ruin it, but I thought it would be a heck of a lot of fun trying. And so when they encouraged me to take that darker side of Bond I ran with it. I think it's the job of the writer to make the producers nervous and the job of the producers to talk sense into the writer. But they've been very supportive and they are very supportive on this one. We send things back and forth and I like that. I don't always like people who agree with me. I like people who challenge me, because there are too many people in Hollywood who just tell you what you want to hear.
Q3: Were you surprised that it did as well as it did?
PH: Yeah, but I loved the script and I loved Daniel Craig and they were really supportive. They came to me and I said: "I think the biggest problem with the script is that you don't have an act three. Would you like one?" And they said yes ...
ML: So that's Venice?
PH: Yeah, and the draft that was there was very faithful to the book. And there was a confession. So in the original draft the character confessed and killed herself. And then she sent Bond to chase after the villains. And Bond chased the villains into the house. And I don't know why but I thought that Vesper had to be in the sinking house and Bond has to want to kill her and then try and save her and she has to kill herself.
Q4: Paul, you've touched on your journey as a writer, which is fascinating. Do you have any advice for budding writers?
PH: I'm not sure they should take my advice. I seem to have succeeded despite myself. But my advice would be to find something you are passionate about. Especially if there's a central question that you can't answer. In Elah when I found the story of the photograph at the end of the Iraqi child. And when I heard the story of the soldier who ran over the child and who took the picture. The rules of engagement there are so harsh and they are that if someone runs out into the street in front of your vehicle you don't stop. Because if you do you sacrifice yourself and the fellow behind you and the six people in the back who are potentially going to be hit by RPGs. Here's an 18-year-old kid who has to make this decision in two seconds. Is it the child, or is it all my friends? What do I decide? And I thought, what would you do, Mr Big Liberal? And I didn't have an answer. Not a good one. And I knew I had a screenplay there. So I think if you find a really good answer you shouldn't write it. Because there's nothing to explore. But if you find something that gnaws at you, you should.
ML: OK ...
PH: But sorry, you need a point of view, and mine would be that we shouldn't have sent them there in the first place. It's our responsibility. We put them in that position. So that's why I won't vilify the troops, because even though there's many crimes being committed there, they are being committed in my name. And so I should point the finger at myself.
Q5: My question relates to the film we've just watched, Elah, and the David and Goliath metaphor. Perhaps I'm being dense, but I don't see how the metaphor relates to Iraq.
PH: I was searching for a story for Tommy to tell in the film. And I knew he read the Bible, but wasn't overly religious. I remembered the story of David and Goliath and about how it was told to me. And then I thought about the way we tell these stories to our sons and pass them on. Here's a boy who comes into a camp and fights a giant that the king's bravest and strongest and best armed warriors are too afraid to fight and the king won't fight himself. And I thought, what kind of a king sends a boy to fight a giant? And then I thought that the effect of that on me, and on my son, was that you want to emulate that boy when you grow up. And that's what these kids do. They go over there to Iraq wanting to be the David, to fight the monster, to fight the giant. We've built this monster up in their heads to be huge. And what happens when they get there and find out that they are the Goliath? What would that do to them?
ML: We'll have to leave it there. Thank you very much to all of you and thank you very much to Paul Haggis. (Applause)