QUESTION: This is another adaptation of a best–selling book. Were you nervous at all about tackling something that people might think is becoming your genre?

LASSE: Yeah, that never goes away – the trepidation that you have in adapting a novel – and this was particularly a challenge, just by its size. It was another famous novel. This has the Pulitzer Prize mark on it, and all these things, you know, you have to shake off and you have to do all the unfaithful things and the things that you need to do to be true to the novel – mainly depart from it, and re–invent, and compress, all these things. And you know in the end it‘s going to be compared and some people are going to have problems. That just goes with adapting a novel to the screen.

QUESTION: Do you have a secret way of dealing with the authors of these various books so that they are aware of the changes?

LASSE: This time I decided not to even meet or talk to her (the authoress). I think it was partly because I was nervous about what she would be thinking about us having to change the story, and I didn‘t really want to be influenced by whatever her thoughts were on it. I was happy to hear in the end that she loved the film. They did wonderful advertising in America with the quotes from her saying that she loved the result, and that was my best review I got.

QUESTION: How easy was it to find the location and to work there?

LASSE: Well Newfoundland was on the map. It was just perfectly… there was no chance of replacing the main character with anything else. Apart from the cold story, it‘s a story of the island and a portrait of the island. So we knew we had to shoot there. I don‘t think it presented any real problems for me. For the producers, they had to figure out some logistical things with housing a crew and cast in a place where there were about two or three inns only. So people were housed in a widespread area around the location. Some crew members had one hour drive. We had to build roads to some of the locations to get there. So it was a wonderful adventure but we were all prepared to do it.

QUESTION: The accent in the film was a bit of a hybrid. Was it difficult to master, and how do you go about different actor‘s accents in the film? Is it important?

LASSE: You‘re talking to the Swedish ear for this and I‘m impaired. But I do know that it‘s true that wherever you go you always have a mix of accents and it‘s particularly true up there. You travel between the villages and, since they‘ve been so isolated, you have a variety of accents going. And that was helpful to us and the cast; the fact that we could be a bit more free and not have to be too particular with these accents. That‘s been true with the films I‘ve made in America so far. I think you can justify the mix of accents by the fact that in the real world there is this mix and I never happened on a place where there‘s just a unified one accent. So that‘s just the reality of it. And there was a wonderful dialect coach that helped them all

QUESTION: Tell us about the casting of Kevin Spacey.

LASSE: Well, you read the book and there‘s an entirely different creature described physically. But to have Kevin, who has been a friend of mine for many years and I respect and admire his versatility as an actor, when he got inspired to try to do something as different as this character, I got excited and he was just challenged about doing something absolutely different. He‘s never been near anything as different as this part. He‘s more of the reactor and, you know, it asks very different things from him; it demands different things from an actor, from any actor.

QUESTION: In the love scene with Cate Blanchett, how did the two of them relate to each other? Was it just as two actors performing a scene as they normally would, or was one more nervous than the other?

LASSE: Well, they were very relaxed about doing the tougher parts of those scenes. Cate said that the most embarrassing thing she‘s ever done was screen the actual love–making scene while they were sprayed with water all through the takes, and during the takes, and it was just great fun. And they had great fun and we were all laughing about it. They seemed to have a good time connecting. Kevin, as the whole cast is, just wonderful people and great people, and people who are attracted to this kind of material and accepting the idea of going to Newfoundland and knowing the kind of lack of amenities. They‘re going for the adventure of it and they‘re all going for the experience, knowing that it‘s going to be an experience of having to appreciate a different place and having to live on a different scale for a long time. So they were all embracing the story and having a good time, a very good time. It was also a great location to be in when there is a family atmosphere on the set and there is no other distraction. And I think it created a strong bond between the cast members.

QUESTION: Lasse – this is your second time working with Judi Dench. How has your relationship with her developed since "Chocolat?"

LASSE: I talked her into reading the novel as we were doing "Chocolat". I admire and respect her work. She is mystifying in the fact that I still cannot figure out – it‘s a mystery about her the way she performs because there is no technique that shows ,and you can go on for weeks and months and I still don‘t know how she can offer up, you know, every take things that would be usable in the picture. She doesn‘t fall out of character. So there‘s a presence in every moment that must rely on technique somewhere but I still haven‘t been able to catch her for one second on what her technique is. So I‘m mystified and I‘m one of her fans.