Julian Fellowes on Why He Chose to Direct ?Separate Lies:? ?You want to work on films you want to see. I like complicated grown-up stories without the sort of polarities, where the morality is difficult and you don't know whose side you're on and you keep changing. That interests me. I'm not so interested by things where, ?This is the good guy and this is the bad guy. She's the heroine and that's it.? Of course those films are fun, too.

I don't mean to poo poo. I like ?I, Robot.? But just for me personally to work on, I wanted a complicated morality because I think life is complicated. We are always making choices that are not good choices. They seem good at the time and then later, you're having to get yourself out of them.
Tom sets himself up, the character James, and it's James's journey as this man, you know? ?I like to do the right thing and that's the way I am.? Then 20 minutes later he's lying to the police and we don't dislike him. In fact, we like him more when he's lying to the police than we liked him when he was sitting in the restaurant being upright and moral. That seems to me what life - you want to make the audience go through a complicated process with these people. Obviously, it's performance led so you need actors who are interesting on that journey, but I think I got them. So I was very lucky in that.?

On Asking Audiences to Switch Allegiances Throughout ?Separate Lies:? ?Obviously, in a sense, that's risky because we're living in a film culture at the moment where on the whole you're given pretty clear instruction as to whose side you're on and you kind of stay with it.

?That's exactly what I want because if someone said, ?What do you want the audience to take away from this film?,? it's that life's complicated. And you should think before you make a judgment on someone, because you almost certainly don't know all the facts.

It's like none of them are horrible people. Not one of them. There are some more horrible than others, but none of them are horrible. Even Rupert [Everett], who is the most horrible of the principals. In the hospital, he's the one who knows James best. He's the one who has the greatest understanding of James' character, and he's the one that knows that James is going to make them all unhappy again if he can only not do it. So suddenly the least generous person is actually giving him advice. My favorite voiceover is when he says, ?Leave her alone. Let her be happy, please.? And the voice says, ?But of course I couldn't.??

Julian Fellowes on What Took Him So Long to Direct: Julian Fellowes won the Oscar for Best Screenplay for ?Gosford Park? and now after 20 years of acting and writing, Fellows is finally making his feature film directorial debut. Fellows said, ?Well, why did it take me so long to get started is probably the true question. I wanted to direct but you all know, if there is anyone in this town who doesn't want to direct, we could probably get them all on one bus. So you have to keep that to yourself, really, until it becomes at least vaguely realistic. And I'd gone up the acting route. I'd gone up a different ladder. It's hard to swing across from those ladders until there is a powerful motive to do so.

The wonderful thing about winning an Oscar, which I strongly recommend to all of you, is that it gives you tremendous choices. Suddenly you're offered all these things. I was allowed to write a novel and I was allowed to do a musical show in London. And I was allowed to present a drama documentary series on the BBC. You would understand if I was just offered other scriptwriting jobs because I won it for writing a script. But it isn't only that. It's this whole kind of ?BOING,? the door springs open.

One of the things I was allowed to do was direct a picture, but I had one ready. I think that was the point. I wanted to direct before and I had written this, wanted to direct it and already was involved with Tom [Wilkinson] on it. I wanted him to play the part, he wanted to play it, and we had tried to get some interest going. Tom had done ?Full Monty? but I was just dead in the water at that point. Then we met at the Oscars in 2002 because he was there for ?In the Bedroom.? He said, ?Do you think this means we'll get our film going?? It did.?

Page 2:Julian Fellowes on His Oscar Win and Directing Tom Wilkinson and Emily Watson