RT: How was it being back shooting a feature film in South Australia?

SH: I really enjoyed it. It was an unexpected pleasure if you like, because the film was originally located in Queensland and migrated to South Australia for financial reasons. So I found myself shooting a film at home again for the first time in about 12 years.

Speaking of home, you're the father of two sons and the owner of a vineyard. So how much of yourself did you infuse in this production?

Well of course there things that resonated quite strongly for me, just given fatherhood has been a huge part of my own life. I wouldn't say it's directly infused, although there are one or two scenes -- now I think about it -- that definitely came out of my own experience. But it was a story that really touched me. I really felt that the story of a man struggling to become a better father to his two sons in the wake of his wife's death; it was very touching, but very unsentimental. And felt so real to me: the dialogue, the relationships. Then of course I discovered it was based on a memoir, so of course it was drawn from life. And that became my intention really, to get it to the screen in that same real feeling as much as possible.

So was there a scene in a vineyard or was that your inclusion?

That was my inclusion. I mean in the original script it was in the sugar cane fields of Queensland! It was nice to be able to set the film somewhere in Australia that I felt hadn't been explored that much or seen on film, which is that vineyard culture.

It appears you've gone from a single mother (or Aunt) in No Reservations to a story about a single father. Did your adaptation of Bella Martha inform The Boys Are Back?

Well it's funny you mention that, because how that came about was that I actually read The Boys Are Backin 2004. I went to Clive with it and I thought he would be fantastic, and he loved it. So I thought, "Here we go. We're off!" But with one thing and another, Clive was busy then I was busy, so we couldn't quite get in sync. Then at the end of 2005 we were all poised ready to shoot the film, and Clive said he needed some time off because he'd done a lot of work back-to-back and he wanted to feel fresh for The Boys Are Back and around that time I was sent the script of what became No Reservations. So I thought, well I've got a year that I'd set out to do The Boys Are Back and here's another film about relationships and people, so I took it on. And of course it had that resonance in it, to do with loss and so on, but it was such a different story that I didn't feel that it was any kind of an issue.

I hadn't realised it was so serendipitous!

Yes it was! Then beyond that it took a while again for Clive and I to get in sync, because when I finished No Reservations he was on another movie. Then when he was finished I was doing my Philip Glass film, and on it went until finally we lined up in 2008. At last! But the great thing was he was as determined as I was not to let it go. Because actors -- especially someone like Clive -- get so many offers to do things, so you just hope their attention doesn't get distracted by something else. But he really, really wanted to play the part.

On that note, how much of a coup was it to get Clive Owen to star in an Australian film?

It was fantastic! I think with any of these co-production arrangements -- which this film was an Australian/English co-production -- it's important that it's authentic to the actual story and the settings. In this case, because Simon Carr, who wrote the original memoir is an English journalist, who did come out here [Carr actually emigrated to New Zealand], it's totally authentic casting to have Clive in the part.

So how was it that a Scottish actress [Laura Fraser] ended up playing an Australian?

Isn't that funny? There it's a matter of -- I looked at a lot of Australian actresses and it was a busy year, a lot of people were working and not available... and in the end I loved that Laura Fraser had a quality in Australia that would be quite unknown. That she wouldn't carry any baggage with her. So I liked that feeling. When she came and auditioned for me, she did a flawless Australian accent, which is quite difficult to do. And I didn't even realise she was Scottish until she finished the read and she suddenly broke out into this broad Scottish accent! Oh my God!