THE DEADBOLT: So, were you the first cast?

GOODE: No. I went in knowing that Ben, Michael, and Emma were involved. At that point, you're like, "Well, I would be a f**king idiot [to not do it]." I've sat in chats where people said my choices have led to great things and I always say that my choices have only been these scripts are great and the people involved are great. I've gone on audition and, luckily, I was given the opportunity. It hasn't been like, "Well, I want to do THIS..."

THE DEADBOLT: "Call Woody Allen!"

GOODE: "Call Allen! Call that c*nt Allen! Tell him I want to do it!" [laughs]

THE DEADBOLT: How long was the shoot?

GOODE: Three months.

THE DEADBOLT: And the budget? I was impressed with the scope of the piece for what I'm sure was a low budget.

GOODE: It was under $20 million. I think it's incredibly impressive. It's got tons of scenes and you go to places like Venice and Morocco. So, it was a very, very tight timeline. And it was exhausting. Ten-eleven week and I'm in practically every shot. I was exhausted and worried a lot of the time. And it would have been nice to do it in the narrative order, but you're jumping all over the place. Particularly, that summer was just full of rain. Some would say, "Well, that's just an old English summer, isn't it?" But the whole country was flooded. So, the bits of sunshine that we managed to grab were literally due to us being in the house when suddenly it's like, "Green! Go! Go! We've got sun!" All that montage stuff was one shot. We were very lucky.

THE DEADBOLT: Last time we talked, you said, "I've still got a lot of learning to do." So what did you learn on this project?

GOODE: I think you learn to trust your instincts a bit more. It's like becoming a man, really. I've been working for - this is like my seventh year. So, if you think of yourself like a child, I'm like a seven-year-old boy. Every time you work - It's about that, about trusting your instincts. Particularly for someone who has insecurities on an intellectual level. With this kind of material, that was a very nice thing, to be able to sit down and talk things out with someone like Emma, and to be the lead. And it's a very unobliging lead role. He's so observational. To learn to really listen. You don't get big chunks of text. So, it's a very back-foot role. You can never really bullet point what you learned, but I learned that I had an incredibly challenging three months and I must have taken something away from it. And I've got Emma Thompson on speed dial now, which is great. [laughs]

THE DEADBOLT: What did you learn working with greats like Emma and Michael?

GOODE: Just how to be and how to handle... I'll never know what that kind of baggage is - to walk into a room with three Oscars and know that you've directed, you've written, and you've acted, and you're f**king brilliant at them all. I was scared out of my f**king mind. She's able to dispel all that. What you learn from these people is grace. It's a very English thing. We love our job and it's more than a hobby, but I just learned grace from them.

THE DEADBOLT: What was the worst day on-set?

GOODE: Swimming in the fountain naked. It was so f**king cold, that water. I'm still getting used to the fact that every job I do these days involves me getting buck naked. It was so cold and went on for a long time. Every day had its grind. It's a pleasure, but trying to maintain concentration for sixteen or seventeen hours a day when most of what you're doing is reacting and observational... I never wanted to play Charles as this cold and ambitious creature. There's a lot of stuff you forget about how mistreated Charles is and how lonely and f**ked up. The way into the character was that his mother had died when he was very young. He's incredibly lonely. That's why he gets on with Sebastian and they have that unbelievable summer. He's just sad, really. He's the creator of his own fate. That's the great thing about the end.

THE DEADBOLT: For you. what's a measure of success for a film like this? It's opening against massive summer movies. It's going to get washed away, in a certain sense.

GOODE: We all know that it is. It's this phrase - "counter-programming." I think it's an intelligent time to open. It's not a novel that's particularly well known over here. So, whenever you put it out, there's going to be bigger period dramas - The Young Victorian. The Duchess. Also, it doesn't necessarily think of itself as being an Oscar film, an award-worthy film. For me, you never get better feedback than you do from the public. It would be nice to have people assess the film and think that we did a very nice adaptation given the constraints of the form of the novel and how difficult it is to make with the budget we had. The real measure for me, someone who's not particularly well known, it would be nice if the British press had some nice things to say about it, as a whole. If it makes its money back - There is that element of you not getting hired again.

THE DEADBOLT: I don't understand why there aren't more movies at this budget.

GOODE: Exactly. And it's like performance-based pay in sports. I always think, "I wouldn't pay anybody that. Where's the love of the game?" It was in recent times when the English football team were like, "We're giving up our match fees." And I was like, "Well, you shouldn't even be getting a f**king match fee when you're playing for your country. It's charity. Good. You shouldn't f**king have it in the first place. You should get paid a hundred thousand pounds a week to play for your football team." It's absolutely ridiculous. And it starts to get insipid in moviemaking, like demanding things before movies even get made. I understand that there should be - A lot of times it's on people's shoulders and it affects their career, and they should get a slice of the profits, but if you're that big and you're that successful, you should get a slice of the profits after you've made that money, not before.

THE DEADBOLT: Watchmen! Tell me something.

GOODE: Watchmen! It's coming out in March. I'm quite a bit excited about it. I really think that Zack [Snyder] could have smashed it out of the park. I think he's made a graphic novel that is an incredible film and really honors the form. I haven't really seen anything but two tiny segments, but they've both been like "F**k me. Wow." And he's left it! He said to me, "It's running about three hours and what Warner Bros. doesn't know, I've made a three-hour arthouse film! There's no action at all!" And I was like, "Good." He's just a God. He's a lovely, lovely man.

Brideshead Revisited opens this week and Watchmen opens next March.