The writer/director tells Paul Stammers he's not afraid of going back to basics.

ON THE FILM: "The Walker is old school: no shakycam, aqua gels or multi-angles. It's about old fashioned people amid their chinoiserie and card games. I'm an old person, after all. It came out of American Gigolo and you can see that in the dressing montage at the beginning (although Woody takes his hairpiece off in The Walker); I think it's better than Gigolo."

YOU SEEM TO HAVE DEVELOPED A SEQUENCE, CHARTING THE MALE PSYCHE. "I have this character in mind who's a kid of drifter, a loner and a peeper. When he was 20, he was angry, he was a taxi driver. When he was 30, he was a narcissistic gigolo, when he was 40 he was a drug dealer and a light sleeper. Now he's 50 and he's a society walker. His skills are now social and he's out of the closet. There won't be another instalment."

ON THE THEMES: "It's set in Washington DC, because of the deep hypocrisy there. I wrote it during the last year of Clinton's administration. DC and Salt Lake City are the two last cities in America where sexual hypocrisy is mandated. Woody plays a character who is living a false and superficial life."

ON THE ACTORS: "Woody wasn't on the cast list at first - I had thought about Kevin Spacey, but he said no - and it took until the middle of the second week of shooting before he 'caught it'. Until then, he'd been a bit flat. Lauren Bacall hogged the limelight a lot and we cut her out of some scenes because of that - that improved her performance! Meanwhile, Lily Tomlin can worry a prop to death. She's famous for that."

YOU'VE DEDICATED IT TO YOUR BROTHER. "Leonard died suddenly as the last negative was shot. I took five or six weeks off as a result. The Walker has things to say about death and family relationships, but Leonard dying was incidental."

WHAT'S YOUR NEXT FILM? "Adam Resurrected, which we're editing now. I hope it will premiere around Cannes time, next year. It's sure to be controversial as it's about a Holocaust survivor, an entertainer, who was forced to live like a dog and ended up mentally ill, in the Negev desert. The usual suspects - Barry Levinson, Sidney Lumet and so on - were approached first, but they turned it down.

"It's a lot different from The Walker - the canvas is bigger, if you like. The funding came from Israeli and German sources.

"Jeff Goldblum is in the main role - he was born to play it. He memorised the script straight away, which was amazing. It's more likely to be thought important than The Walker, though it's not a better film."

YOU DIDN'T SEE YOUR FIRST MOVIE UNTIL YOU WERE 17, RIGHT? "Yes. So many people wanted to make films when I was a kid but I never did, because I'd never seen one. When I first went to the cinema I saw The Absent Minded Professor, and I was very disappointed. That's why I got into European art cinema at college - it's my first love."