Published in Square Mile Magazine, April 2013. Original article here (p79-81).

Interview: Lord Mayor of the City of London, Roger Gifford
If the Lord Mayor is the spirit of the City, as Roger Gifford suggests, it is tempting to wonder how his particular brand of banking could stir things up in the City. As the first banker elected Lord Mayor of the City of London since the financial crisis, Roger Gifford lends credence to his motto of ‘City in Society’ by having kept loyal to the same bank for over three decades, without ever needing bonuses to keep him interested:

“Financial services is a means to an end, not an end in itself. They are means to serving society,” says Gifford, now on leave from his position as UK head for Sweden’s SEB. “You could say this is a reaction to five years of difficult times in the City, but for me it is much more a belief. You could say it is a little bit Swedish, actually.”

There is nothing Scandinavian about our surroundings though, as we meet in the Lord Mayor’s office in the Mansion House. The building was indeed designed “to amaze and impress”, confirms Gifford, who can call the grandiose building his home during his year in this unpaid position. An intense schedule of meetings, dinners, travel, receptions and up to four speeches every day means there is much demand for Gifford’s time: “You have to like the sound of your own voice to do this job, to be perfectly honest,” he laughs. We are careful not to spill our teas on the brocade, as Gifford, classically dressed in a deep blue suit and subtle-patterned tie, admits he sometimes nips off to his North London family home so he can put his feet up without fear of ruining a piece of national heritage. “But it is so exciting to be part of such a long tradition. And yet, to be doing it in a very modern world. It is that combination,” says Gifford.

While the Lord Mayor’s mandate is industry-wide, his banking background means Gifford naturally drifts more towards the City’s financial issues. While debates on regulation, as was the topic of Gifford’s breakfast meeting, is high on the agenda, this is however only part of the Lord Mayor’s concern. “The public has, and I think rightly, been confused and disappointed by what they have heard about the banking industry,” says Gifford, pointing specifically to the bank bail-outs, “But we have not been good enough at explaining what banking is all about. For instance, there are 250 foreign banks employing 150,000 people in the UK. That is a massive bit of business has no burden on the UK tax payer at all.”

While issues such as the Libor scandal has done little to reassure the public the problems are in the past, new regulation has already changed UK banking, says Gifford. But did the industry want change?

“Yes, I think they did.” Gifford pauses a moment. “As a banker, I have been really upset about some aspects of the industry. [...] There are aspects around remuneration which I have not liked as an employer, and I am delighted they are changing.” But, notes Gifford, there is a tendency to blame procedures following a crisis, while a big part of the issue has been caused by socio-political trends of consumer over-borrowing: “You cannot really legislate for that, but people are changing regulations because of it. We have said in the City all along: we want the right regulation, not more regulation.”

Having been responsible for SEB’s UK operations for 12 years, the Scandinavian point of view has affected Gifford’s outlook on the current situation. The Swedish banking sector underwent a crisis during its deregulation 20 years ago, which means SEB now has a “more cautious, more conservative” attitude than many UK and European banks: “We have, like the Norwegian and Canadian and Australian banks, a very conservative policy on credit. We are very careful where, how much and how long we lend for. We are very careful about the derivative structured products, and we do very little of it. I have been very affected by working for a Swedish bank for 30 years.”

Gifford has previously stated how the Occupy movement sparked important discussions about what we want capitalism to be. He calls for an increased social awareness in capitalism: “We all prosper more if all parts of society are looked after. You can talk about benefit fraud, excessive social policy or taking away the will to work, but there have to be balances,” says Gifford, who credits Occupy with having made people stop and think. When asked whether this feels like a radical attitude, Gifford counters that it in fact feels very normal. But, I point out, we are sitting in this lavish building, after he as the Lord Mayor was sworn in during a silent ceremony with elaborate costumes and processions. Does the pomp and circumstance add something, or is it a distraction?

“The ceremony side of things is great fun. It is no more than 2% of the total amount of time,” asserts Gifford. “And it adds because it reminds people of the history and tradition that has developed over 800 years. There are reasons why we live the way we do, why we have the kind of government, the kind of Monarchy and the City institutions that we do. We have them because of history and they remind us of our principles, of behaviour, of activity, the direction we are going in, and they remind us that we should live for the long-term.”

There is no doubt Gifford feels is a great honour to be Lord Mayor, but, I press, does the role actually come with power? Gifford thinks for a moment. “I do not feel I have much power, but I maybe have a little bit of influence.” He pauses again. “The Lord Mayor is a representative of the City. He is the spokesman. The position is revered a bit, and that gives you responsibility to think, to behave, to discuss in a certain way. I do not think it is against the sort of person I am, but you feel the responsibility to try to influence in the right way.”

The charities, trusts and clubs where Gifford holds mandates of influence, many of which come with the job, also cross over into his personal interests: “I am really interested in what the City does on the music side. Certainly, I get very involved with the English Chamber Orchestra, the Tenebrae Choir and St Paul’s Cathedral Foundation. [...] I am very interested in the power of music to change and affect people,” asserts Gifford, not to mention how these classical organisations nurture a need for tradition: “People want to belong.”

The Lord Mayor certainly knows where he belongs, having said at the beginning of our meeting he would go back to SEB after this year: “I have been 30 years with dear old SEB. I will go back to them.” But after the Mansion House experience, will his role there be enough? “I only said I would go back to SEB. I would quite like to do something a little bit else!” Gifford says, with a glint in his eye.

Published in N by Norwegian in-flight magazine, January 2013. Original article here.

Katzenjammer: The British invasion
“We love coming to London!” Katzenjammer are all grins and cheer as we meet backstage at the Islington Academy, just an hour before they are due to play the sold-out venue upstairs. There’s little about the cramped, stark dressing room to suggest what a roaring, raunchy show that Anne Marit Bergheim, Marianne Sveen, Solveig Heilo and Turid Jørgensen will deliver in just a moment. The Norwegian band has a Bavarian beerhouse folksy pop sound, with a hint of circus, delivered on a myriad of instruments. And Katzenjammer’s definition-defying brand of quirk is like catnip to the Brits.

“We arrived in London this morning … no, yesterday!” Turid laughs; the group has spent a lot of time in their tour bus lately. Dressed in a white trilby and shiny black leggings, Turid is the tall blonde often found playing various guitars, but the four women continuously swap the dozen-or-so instruments around on stage, and they all take turns as lead singer. Solveig, the guitarist, drummer and sometime trumpeteer, looks a sharp contradiction tonight in her messed-up ice-blonde hair and classic tweed dress: “We feel so welcome in Britain! We’ve got something of a cult following over here, people show up and we sell out venues. Britain is happening for us now – we’re just getting started.”

With Birmingham last night and Oxford tomorrow, Katzenjammer has had a busy tour across the UK, the second this year. But what’s the draw of Britain? “It’s always been sitting there as a tough place to break, but there seems to be an appetite for our music here,” says Anne Marit, the banjo and accordion player. Solveig interjects: “The UK audience seems to really come along with us when we play, no matter which city we are in. Brits are hard to impress because they have seen it all, so they respond in a really honest way.” Marianne, whose powerful voice is complemented by armfuls of tattoos, is a fan of touring in the UK because its diversity complements Katzenjammer’s own: “We really don’t pay attention to what music or style is popular. We just play what we love.”

Katzenjammer will continue to push on with its British invasion, because as Anne Marit says, eyes poking out under a heavy fringe: “The world is a tempting place”. There’s little cheek to be found in the the four friendly and thoughtful women while in the dressing room, but this will change; some sort of transformation is clearly about to happen. Soon Anne Marit will charm the audience with her attempt at Cockney slang, and Solveig will flash her backside to the audience “because now you’ve seen it it’s not interesting anymore”. The same can’t be said for Katzenjammer.

Published in Oh Comely magazine, 2012. Original article here.

Fire in the heart
‘Junkhearts’ director Tinge Krishnan talks about writing stories in the playground, leaving medicine, and moving through darkness into light.

She is a believer in transformation and redemption, Tinge Krishnan. It is there in her own story, from her start as a medical doctor to becoming a film director, and it is the central theme in Junkhearts, her first feature film. The brief connection between Lynette, the young homeless girl, and Frank, the wrung-out soldier, triggers significant changes, but still the overarching feeling in Junkhearts is one of bleakness. At least that is what I say to Krishnan as we wait for our tea to arrive.

“It wasn’t intended to be bleak, does it feel bleak?” says Krishnan. This is awkward. The director has just told me how she’s always worried about letting the film down by saying silly things in interviews. And here I am, having possibly misread its intentions completely. But Krishnan seems genuinely interested in my interpretation of the film, asking several questions about which specific scenes I’m referring to. When Frank and Lynette meet they give something to each other, but then it all threatens to fall apart, I say to her. The film almost shows you that you shouldn’t trust people. Krishnan thinks about it for a moment.

“That does exist in Frank. His worldview is that people are not to be trusted, so he’s almost waiting for it to happen. All the little decisions he makes contribute to it. That is a pattern Frank has to shift, and in the end it’s proved, it was right to trust,” says Krishnan. “Frank couldn’t have continued to live the way he lived when he met Lynette. He had to go through a lot of pain, but there was a lot that shifted in that pain and it opened him up.”

Frank suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from being a soldier in Northern Ireland, and this was a key point of connection for Krishnan. Krishnan was in Thailand during the 2004 tsunami, and being a doctor she helped in the aftermath of the crisis. This led to her developing PTSD.

“It was a very powerful experience,” says Krishnan, who received counselling after returning to the UK. “I wanted to make a piece that’s about that healing process. As a filmmaker I could find a way to creatively express those experiences in a way that could touch an audience and help them understand. I think it’s hard to understand PTSD when you haven’t experienced it yourself.”

Before becoming a filmmaker, Krishnan worked as an A&E doctor – not exactly a typical route for budding creative types. Krishnan can trace the idea of a ‘detour’ back to school: “All the way through school I’d write plays and stories, reading them out in the playground. I assumed I was going to become a writer, but my English teacher said I should go do and do something different first.”

While the path to filmmaking wasn’t a conscious choice, Krishnan has no regrets about hanging up her white coat: “That’s fine, because I learned so much from it, it’s amazing.” She pauses. “Aspects of being a doctor that I miss are relating that intimately with people, and finding solutions. That was always very interesting.”

It must have been great to have a job where you got to help people, I suggest, but Krishnan shakes her head: “Medicine isn’t all running around saving lives, sometimes it feels like its mainly banging your head against a bureaucratic wall!” She laughs. “I’m not sure to what degree doctors actually feel they’re making a difference.“

And as a filmmaker, does she feel like she’s making a difference now? Krishnan thinks about it for a moment: “I would hope so. It is my intention. Maybe not? I don’t know. All I can do is try.”

Krishnan spent a lot of time researching the themes of the film, talking to servicemen suffering from PTSD and alcohol problems, and spending time in drug rehab centres talking to former crack users. But when asked about which elements drew her to Junkhearts, the first thing she brings up is the father-daughter relationships; an intertwined storyline is that of Christine, the daughter Frank abandoned. “At the core it really is a relationship film. It’s about that funny relationship between daughters and fathers, or father figures. The interface between feminine and masculine energy can be quite tempestuous.”

The power of the feminine is emerging as a theme for Krishnan’s work, alongside redemption, tenderness and transformation of darkness into light. While also looking after her new baby, the director is currently busy working on her new script, for a thriller centred on a female anti-hero.

Krishnan still has dreams where she’s a doctor, but her heart belongs to film now. “It’s about that moment when we’re on set, and the actors are releasing powerful, in-the-moment performances. I can see it in the monitor and I can hear it in the headset and I can feel that electricity that means we’re getting something powerful. That’s the best feeling.” Krishnan pauses, she seems to have drifted off somewhere. “When making a film there will be a moment when there’s a commitment, you feel it coming from the crew and the cast when everyone knows they are working on something exciting. You really feel the moment when people start to walk through the fire.”

Published in Lionheart Magazine, issue 2, summer 2012. Original article here.

Cool kid Chloë
Swagger, talent and a thirst for exploration through acting is why Chloë Moretz is a star in the making. Jessica Furseth talks to the Hollywood actress about ambition, confidence and listening to your mother.

She has a lot of sass for a 14-year-old, that Chloë Moretz. She rocks up with buckets of smiles, a cocky-cute “how you doing” and she’s just so cool – there’s no other word for it. I meet the teenage actress in London during the promotions for Martin Scorsese’s film ‘Hugo’, where Chloë plays sheltered Paris girl Isabelle as she embarks on a much-longed-for adventure. But the Chloë sitting in front of me in the flash hotel suite looks much more grown up than the beret-wearing child on screen. An elegant hair bun is paired with dark-checked trousers and a grey blouse, with her silver nail polish perfectly offset against chunky heels in the same colour. She speaks with a broad American twang; earlier that day Martin Scorsese praised her for being a joy to direct, with an English accent so spot on he thought she was a native. The verdict is in: not just a pretty face, but good at her job too.

“It’s such an honour to have worked with Marty, he’s a living legend,” says Chloë, kicking back in her chair. She’s conscious of not seeming ungrateful for the chance to work with Scorsese, but then again, why wouldn’t she be chosen? After all, she’s good. “In acting there are so many people telling you ‘no’, but I look at them and think, well you say ‘no’ now, but next year I promise you are going to want me for your movie. And almost every time I’ve done that it’s come true: they have come back wanted me!”

Chloë laughs easily, drawing you in with the occasional geeky grimace. Listening to her describe Scorsese makes it clear she sees him more like an uncle than a hero: “He’s an amazing guy, he’s so funny! He makes everyone feel comfortable, everyone’s on the same playing field. I think that’s why he gets such a good vibe in his movies.” The role of Isabelle is probably the closest Chloë has come to playing a girl like herself, after previous experiences of playing a vampire in ‘Let Me In’ and a potty-mouthed superhero in ‘Kickass’. Tim Burton’s ‘Dark Shadows’ is due shortly, where Chloë plays a girl with a “dark secret”: “I look for something where I really connect with the character. If I can’t put down the script, if all I can think about for the next few days is how I want to play that character, that’s the kind of movie I’ll do.”

Chloë lives with her mother and four older brothers, and it’s clear that little sister’s career is a family project: “My brother Trevor and my mother read all the scripts that come in, and if they like them they send them to me. The we make a group decision on what’s not only the best decision for my career, but also for me as an actress.”

It’s easy to forget the young woman sitting in front of me is only 14 years old. Not that she tries to appear older, in fact she seems very aware of her youth. “I’ve seen [Scorsese’s] ‘Raging Bull’ and ‘Gangs of New York’ but my mum still keeps me from seeing ‘Taxi Driver’. Even though the others are also 18-rated, that’s over my head in a different way. It deals with things I can’t exactly grasp at 14. Which I don’t like to admit but I have to.”

Chloë has worked as an actress for half her life now, starting out by reciting monologues in the playground. “My mom would get calls from school asking, why is your daughter talking about killing someone?” She laughs. “That’s how I got into acting, and I begged my mom to let me do it. Of course I didn’t know what acting really was, just that it was fun.”

And it’s still fun: “I think the day it starts to feel like work is the day I will stop, but I’m nowhere near that. I still have an amazing time acting, when it’s huge and fantastical and I get to see through the eyes of the character. […] I love roles where I’m not like myself, because I’m Chloë every day. I’m happy with my life, so I like playing characters that aren’t so happy.” She pauses. “Those are the roles I can really space out in, you know, where I can really get into those dark crevices of the psyche. I love those weird and dark places you have to go to for those characters.”

Chloë is quick to concede she’s not exactly a regular 14-year-old, but her responses usually draw examples from her family, not from working with famous directors or going to Hollywood parties. Like when I ask if she feels older than she is: “My mom is the kind of mom where if you want a bowl of cereal, she’ll tell you to go get it yourself. She didn’t baby us to the point where we didn’t know what to do by the time we were 14. My family is … it’s sort of a sophisticated atmosphere, maybe. And also pretty crazy. But my mom’s always raised me to be a smart kid.”

It’s a bold statement, but Chloë definitely is a smart kid: “I think there’s a difference in acting older and feeling older, knowing older. When I was 13 I thought I was older, but now I’m 14 I realise I was a baby then. So when I’m 16 I’ll think I‘m a baby now.” She laughs. “And when I’m my mom’s age I’ll really think I was a baby!”

But make no mistake: Chloë has buckets of confidence. “Yes I do. But in any profession you have to be confident. I’m very competitive. I’ve always wanted to be the best.“ She shrugs, cocking her head to the side. “One of the first films I saw was ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ and I fell in love with Audrey Hepburn. She makes you smile, you know? And that was one of the reasons I wanted to act, the way she makes you smile and transports you to that place, that’s what I want to do for people. I want to transport people to another place.”

And then our time is up, as the PR sweeps in and hustles Chloë out of her seat. She flashes a grin and thanks me for the chat before she’s off to charm someone else. In this she will succeed, I have no doubt.

Published in Idol Magazine, March 2012. Original article here.

The mythology of Sir Ben Kingsley
Sir Ben Kingsley discovered a rich mythology in ‘Hugo’, Martin Scorsese’s playful 3D adventure. The veteran actor took us to the heart of the story, while Martin Scorsese dazzled us with us his passion for 3D as the next step in cinema history.

While ‘Hugo’ tells the dreamt-up story of a boy living in the clock tower of a Paris train station, the role played by Sir Ben Kingsley is plucked from reality. It is the life story of Georges Méliès which fascinates Kingsley, far more than the excitement over the film’s 3D format. As one of the world’s first filmmakers, Méliès made over 500 films, before a lack of money forced him into a life as a cranky toymaker at Gare Montparnasse.

“For an actor, to explore the light of Méliès in his glass studio, and then to experience the dark of the toyshop, the exile … to be Méliès at his most empowered, in order to appreciate that terrible loss when he can no longer function as a creative artist,” says Kingsley, as he fixes his eyes on you and pulls you into his narrative. “It was terrific to occupy the full sweep, the arc of the character. This was one of the greatest arcs I’ve ever been privileged to scale. Beautiful, perfect! The balance of it is perfect.”

Kingsley paints pictures with his words. The veteran actor is calm and focused as we meet in grand settings at London’s Dorchester Hotel. Dressed in a dark blazer and neat jeans, Kingsley speaks with consideration, whispering a bit here and there for emphasis. Sir Ben, as he is called by everyone around him, is 67 years old, but there is nothing to suggest the ‘Gandhi’-star is looking for any less demanding roles now that he is eligible for his free bus pass. For what would be the fun in that?

“I fear there is a desperate immaturity in me that means I will be stuck being a child for a long, long time,” laughs Kingsley.

Childish inspiration
Kingsley shares the spotlight in ‘Hugo’ with 14-year-olds Asa Butterfield and Chloë Moretz, playing the parts of Hugo and his friend Isabelle. While the film, based on Brian Selznick’s book ’The Invention of Hugo Cabret’, is suitable for children, it contains a wealth of detail which means it appeals also to a mature audience.

“There are many subtle metaphors in the film, like the heart with a key to unlock it,” says Kingsley; Hugo is trying to repair an automaton given to him by his father, but he is missing a heart-shaped key. “Méliès’ heart is closed, and the key to unlock is the most innocent of children. Also, Hugo has to recreate himself because of the loss of his parents. He is very brave living in the train station, winding the clocks, being the time keeper of the world.”

Kingsley is full of admiration for his young colleagues, to the extent that he claims they pushed him to do better job himself. “Asa and Chloë both bring to their work a purity. Their acting is unimpeded, it is uninterrupted by theory, it comes from the heart,” says Kingsley. “This then demands in me the same level of purity. It raises my game, which is for me very exciting.”

Classical myths
Children’s ability to inspire is a topic that Kingsley returns to several times during our meeting, both in terms of how it affects him as an actor, but also how it is the kids in ‘Hugo’ who inspire a change in filmmaker Méliès after he has given up.

“It is one of the ancient classic myths: the exiled man is drawn back into life by the hand of a child. I always look for the six-seven classical stories in the scripts that I am offered. If there’s a central myth that acts as a map to unlock a script and fill it with genuine life and feeling, that’s the script I will choose. I recognised that early on in Marty’s script: there it is, there’s the exiled man and the child! It’s perfect, perfect.”

His background from the Royal Shakespeare Company means Kingsley is more familiar with the classical myths than most. This influence remains clear even now: Kingsley’s words are akin to performance, uttered with a perfect grammatical structure usually found only on stage.

3D controversy
‘Hugo’ is the first 3D experience for both Kingsley and Martin Scorsese, and the format remains controversial. But the man who gave cinematic classics such as us ‘Taxi Driver’ and ‘Goodfellas’ has buckets of enthusiasm for the new frontier:

“I’ve always wanted to do something in 3D. Over the years I’ve been obsessed with it: the blue and red glasses, black and white 3D, I’m a fanatical about it all but I never thought we would be able to do it,” says Scorsese.

The technology has now caught up with the director’s inspiration, but the 3D experience in ‘Hugo’ is less gimmicky than we are used to. Still, the Hollywood legend does not necessarily agree that 3D has to add something to the story. “Everybody says 3D has to enhance the story, but you have to think of what that really means. Does colour enhance every damn film that’s ever made? No!” Scorsese becomes animated. “Does colour enhance the room right now? It is in colour! Guess what, it’s in 3D too!”

Constant reinvention
Listening to Scorsese is fascinating: he charges forward, he stops mid-sentence and jumps back and forth as he makes his point. But all the actors in ‘Hugo’ say the same thing: Scorsese is highly observant, and he makes everyone around him feel at ease.

“He doesn’t miss a thing, I’m not exaggerating,” says Kingsley. “Whenever you’re with Marty, in his lovely big glasses, you see that he’s always taking in everything: the world, the person with whom he’s speaking. And it’s that extraordinary appetite for life that allows him to entirely reinvent himself, and to be completely with the person in front of the camera.”

While Kingsley was not a fan of 3D before making ‘Hugo’, it seems the experience may have changed the Shakespearean’s view of the format. “You are asking me about 3D in the wake of a beautiful experience,” says Kingsley. “My first time with 3D was this little View-Master where you turned a disc to see things in 3D. As a child I loved it, I was inside another world. Until I saw Marty’s film I had never had a 3D experience with the same effect. Marty allows you to see things through your child’s eyes, and that’s an amazing achievement,” says Kingsley. “It’s a miracle, really.”

Published in Idol Magazine, August 2011. Original article here.

JJ Abrams’ memory lane
With otherworldly successes such as Star Trek and Lost on his record, it’s clear JJ Abrams has a thing for the supernatural. With his new film Super 8 there’s plenty of mystery, but this time it’s personal. We sat down with JJ Abrams for a chat about creating a teenage world, working with a childhood hero, and learning to trust your own voice.

“I was definitely the fat kid making movies. I was the loner oddball kid who didn’t have the confidence,” says JJ Abrams. It’s still all about the films, although it’s safe to say life has changed since the days of Abrams’ early directing efforts. But even at 46, the director has some of the geeky kid left in him as he greets me with a polite handshake, in his horn-rimmed glasses, blue checked shirt and a curly mop of hair standing on end. Elle Fanning, Super 8’s sparkling leading lady, called him “a big kid” at the press conference earlier in the day, and it’s easy to see why. When Abrams gets excited about a topic there’s no stopping him: words stumble out and hands gesticulate wildly, oblivious to time-keeping PRs tapping their watches.

While Abrams is sticking with a sci-fi theme with Super 8, his new Hollywood release takes him back to own teenage experiences with a camera loaded with 8-millimetre film. Super 8 is set to 1979, where a group of teenagers are making a film much in the same way Abrams used to do: “I felt it would be fun to revisit that period of my life.”

The retro setting prompted Abrams to get in touch with the man who for him is the embodiment of the era’s cinematic style: Steven Spielberg. “He just got it instantly. He said ‘Yes, I love that idea’.” Spielberg and Abrams ended up developing the story about the young filmmakers into a larger sci-fi adventure, where the kids become witnesses to a massive train crash outside their hometown. Amazing discoveries follow as they start digging into the mysterious circumstances surrounding the accident.

But this isn’t the first time Abrams has worked with Spielberg. It was a teenage JJ who, at 15, received a surprising phone call from the director. Spielberg had taken notice of Abrams and his friend during a Los Angeles film festival: “We were asked, ‘Would you be interested in repairing Spielberg’s old 8mm films?’ We were confused as hell by this,” laughs Abrams. Because with 8mm-film there’s only one copy, meaning Spielberg was trusting a couple of random kids not to wreck his originals. “It made no sense at all. When I talk about this with him now he says, ’Well I knew you guys would take care of it.’ I still don’t believe him. It’s a ridiculous story, but it’s true.”

Abrams never met Spielberg during this early restoration project, but the experience became a turning point. When the two directors finally met many years later, Abrams was keen to see if Spielberg remembered who he was: “My heart was pounding!” But sure, Spielberg remembered young JJ, and told him he’d been following his career. Abrams called his friend as he was driving home to tell him about his long-awaited meeting with his hero: “I remember looking up and I was completely lost, I had no idea where I was driving. I was so excited!”

As a young filmmaker, it was a valuable lesson for Abrams to be able to see the early efforts from a leading director, and to understand that no one makes Jaws without some practice first. Back then there were no DVDs with hours of background materials, so it was a rare insight into the process.

“But I am still terrified by everything I do, what the reaction will be. The confidence [the Super 8 filmmakers] have is something I would see in friends of mine from school, and just … where the hell does that come from!” Abrams laughs.

But modesty aside, the director has become one of the most popular new names in Hollywood. Amongst his new projects is a script collaboration with the author Colum McCann, and Abrams hopes to start filming a new Star Trek film soon: “The script is being worked on right now so I’m looking forward to seeing it.”

So after working with Spielberg can we now say the teacher has become the master? “Eh, that sure hasn’t happened,” says Abrams, chuckling. “But I will say that working with Steven has been an education. Partly one in temperament and patience, and also going back to confidence, in trusting your own voice.”

As a sci-fi director, Abrams is quick to praise advancements in technological, which mean he can deliver increasingly better special effects. But there is no doubt the 1970s world of Super 8 has brought on a bout of nostalgia.

“And I think it goes far beyond just film. There is now a kind of instant information, instant purchase, instant understanding that is so counter-intuitive and lacking in experience. Think about [when you had] to get in your car or on your bike and go to the store, walking through the aisles, hearing the other music and finding the album and going to buy it. Then you pay and you’re meeting the person who’s working there … There’s a whole investment into that and when you get home you make sure you listen to that song or the whole album because you’ve just [done all this].”

The PR has is now loudly clearing her throat; we have gone over our allotted time. But Abrams isn’t finished, so he apologises and talks even faster: “There was such a thrill working on a story that existed in an environment pre-cellphone, pre-VHS, pre-downloads. It made me miss it, frankly. … [Now], by not requiring any real investment in time or thought, both the desire for things and the acquiring of things lacks any sort of effort. There is a sort of entitlement to knowing [we can] contact the person we want right away. That is so not the way it used to be, and there is something wonderful about the unknown and the unpredictable. It’s getting increasingly harder to find.”