Nacho Vigalondo, the actor/director of the excellent Timecrimes which OWF’s Chief Film Critic called a “funny, clever and brilliantly constructed “, sat down with Mike to promote the newly released DVD of his movie…

Q. How did you come up with this crazy time travel idea?

NV: I lived most of my life in science-fiction novels and science-fiction tales and I love science-fiction, I’m a science-fiction geek and I love it when they [filmmakers] retell stories of Philip K. Dick, or Robert Hangland [?] or Stanislav Lem [?] and I always wanted to make a movie with that level of complexity. But I wanted complexity and at the same time the craziness and enjoyment. That’s my dream! So when I came to this story I became obsessed, I loved the structure and at the same time it was possible to make it as a cheap film. So it was possible, realistic, but at the same time a weird and complex story like those of these authors.

Q. Was it very difficult when you were directing and acting in the film at the same time?

NV: Yeah, but when you’re making your first film you go wild! You lose your common sense. When I had this opportunity to make the film, and I’d spent all my teenage time dreaming of being a feature film director, when the opportunity came it was like jumping into the void and lets see what happens!

Q. How do you feel about it being picked up for a remake already?

NV: It’s cool. Since this is my first film, I still feel like I’m a lucky child. I’ve had the chance to meet people like the producer or Tim Sexton [I think he means the CHILDREN OF MEN writer!] who is the writer or the remake, I’m a fan of these people so maybe you have to assume the remake will be better than mine! If I had ten movies in the bag, maybe I’d defend it’s serious facets. If I became this Haneke style director, maybe if I become this serious filmmaker, then we could worry about remakes of my films but in this case I’m still a nerd and I’m just waiting for the moment when they let me go along to the shoot where I can see all these famous actors, you know? [Laughs]

Q. So has the film caused people to look at you differently?

NV: Yeah, for example I made a half an hour short film that received an Oscar nomination in 2005, I made this feature film that made many North American festivals, but I can tell you that the day the remake was announced was when I realised they looked at me with a different face. At that moment I felt that they were looking at me with different intentions.

Q. What are you planning to make next?

NV: I made the film in 2006 and it was a lot of work to get it to screens, it took a lot of time so I spent most of that time writing so I have some projects to develop. Some of them will be Spanish and some will be American. I’m trying to work with different producers at the same time, but I don’t know what will come next. In all my projects I stay close to science-fiction, to horror… to B-movie stuff!

Q. Is that what you think is the most fun thing you can possibly make at the moment?

NV: Oh man, my second script, the one I talk about all the time, it’s called ‘The Ramp’ and it’s a story about a guy who’s building a big ramp because he has made a lot of mathematical calculations based on UFO sightings earlier in the century and so he can predict when and where the next UFO is going to appear. So this movie is about the guy building a ramp so he can jump onto the UFO with a car. [We both laugh] So this genius is going to jump onto a UFO with a car.

Q. You clearly have a real eye for the absurd, is that the result of watching lots of strange films when you were growing up?

NV: When I was growing up, I was one of those kids in Spain in the 80s who was watching all the Spielberg and the Lucas stuff and was excited by more or less the same stuff [as the rest of the world]. Things like THE GOONIES and BACK TO THE FUTURE. But I think that I woke up as a filmmaker in the 90s when I was able to watch Italian films, and early Sam Raimi films like THE EVIL DEAD. I think, for example, I think that TIMECRIMES comes from THE EVIL DEAD PART 2 and my mind was just blown away. I wanted to make a movie about one guy caught in a lot of crazy situations one after the other and I think TIMECRIMES is almost my own version of THE EVIL DEAD PART 2.

Q. If you could go back in time and make any film, what would you make?

NV: The most successful film of all time! I don’t know, if I go back in time to make a film that is already made that means that I am a villain, an evil guy, and if I am an evil guy that means I want to conquer the world, and if I want to conquer the world the movie I should make is TITANIC!

Q. Going back to the film, I wanted to ask about Hector. As a lead character he is very unusual because he’s so ordinary and often not very likeable. Is that something you planned for him?

NV: Of course. I don’t know if this movie feels like an American film, or an Italian film, or a European film, but I wanted to have a very Spanish element so I had a very Spanish guy there. And I didn’t want a common hero, I wanted to make something that is recognisable, he could be the father of your best friend for example. I wanted an uncommon hero for this story to make the audience feel like you can watch just ten minutes of the film and feel that although it’s a science-fiction film it could be a drama, a comedy, a realistic film, it could be any kind of film. It turns into science-fiction because it’s TIMECRIMES [laughs] but according to the characters it could be anything, I love the feeling when you’re feeling unpredictable at least on some level.

Q. Did you ever feel like that when you were filming it? That anything could happen, anything could go wrong?

NV: To be honest it’s really complicated to make a film like this in Spain, and to find the financial support, and when I finished the film I spent a year with a production company trying to find a distributor and there came a point when I had to look in the mirror and say to myself that this film may never make it to cinemas. Or even DVD. So it was really hard in 2007 and I thought the movie wouldn’t exist, and we went to Texas and the Fantastic Fest in Austin. we won the prize, so my life just turned 180-degrees. It was awesome. At that moment we had only one copy of the film and were about to face the prospect that this film could never exist.

Timecrimes (Los Cronocrimenes) is out on DVD in the UK on 4th May and is available in the US now.