Brothers

Brothers captures the fallout in when a soldier (Tobey Maguire) goes missing in Afghanistan and his wife (Natalie Portman) becomes close to his brother (Jake Gyllenhaal) back home in the US. Irish director Jim Sheridan, 60, a master of the searing kitchen-sink drama, explains to Time Out why he remade Susanne Bier's 2004 Danish film of the same name.

You've just got off a flight from the US. Do you work on films when you fly? Back in the day when I was younger and I was writing My Left Foot, we were on the runway and taking off and if you're in any way scared it activates something in your mind for writing. There's conflict and deep fear in the air. It kind of puts you in that space between life and death.

Does a sense of mortal danger make it harder to concentrate? No, I think it focuses you. I live off adrenaline. It's only when the adrenaline's going that I'm clear up top. So maybe that's a fuckin' childhood trauma, or something.

Do you ever watch films on planes? No, very rarely. But I saw The Hangover on a plane which I loved. The structure is brilliant where they wake up and they can't remember anything... My life's occasionally a little like that.

How were you first introduced to Susanne Bier's version of Brothers? I watched it in my house on tape. I thought it was rather good, and when I heard they wanted to remake it I thought I could do something different with it. I liked the idea of the main character being put in a place beyond life and death, where whatever choice he makes is going to be wrong.

What appealed to you about it? Well, the brothers having a fight appealed to me. Sibling rivalry in general - I know a bit about that. The family story too. The ability to say something about post-traumatic stress was interesting.

You didn't write it. Did you ever want to? Of course, but here's the thing: if you're a director, you won't get a credit for writing in the current system. It's impossible in America. You just won't get credit.

I don't understand. Why? What used to happen was that the producers and directors used to bend the arms of the writers to get a credit. The Writers' Guild acted the opposite way - they didn't want credit for directors and producers. So, even if you go in and rewrite everything, they'll still say it wasn't your idea. Not unless you go into an arbitration where you produce a 50-page document on what you wrote and what you didn't write, then three members of the Writers' Guild say yes or no. Basically, it's like a court case. But I do feel that the director is the main creative force in the movie making process, so it doesn't really matter.

So do you feel you're more of a writer or a director? The weird thing is, I wrote My Left Foot, The Field, In the Name of the Father, The Boxer and In America, and luckily enough, all of them got nominated for Oscars...except The Boxer, which got some Golden Globes. Even then, people still only look at me as a director and not a writer. And when they hear me talking, they think I'm totally inarticulate! Writing is easier. You can slack off. You get up when you want, get a coffee and a paper, then I'll come back via the bookies, then before you know it, it's four o'clock in the afternoon, you know?

Where did you set Brothers? It's not obvious from watching it. The weird thing is, I didn't set it anywhere. When people asked me where it was set, I said "California", because I didn't want anyone to do accents. Having a voice coach wandering around the set saying "accent, accent, accent" drives me nuts.

One of the producers of Brothers said that the fact the film involves the war in Afghanistan is not important. He said Tobey Maguire's character could have suffered in any traumatic situation. Do you agree with that? More or less. Yet, I don't think Tobey Maguire would have been as affected if he'd been in a car crash or something. We're in a war where there are no rules. Choosing heroic suicide or life - it's a hard choice. Suicide bombers I'm not into. I think it's a bit of a cop out.

What research did you do for your portrayal of the Afghan militants in the film? We just read up as much as we could about the Taliban really. And a little bit on Al-Qaeda. But, at the end of the day, it's an imaginative thing where you're taking an idea and just running it. I mean, are they stereotypical Al-Qaeda guys? I dunno. David Jenkins