Scottish director Paul McGuigan has swapped Glasgow for Hollywood in recent years. After demonstrating a sharp eye for visuals with Irvine Welsh adaptation The Acid House and acclaimed Paul Bettany pic Gangster No.1, he went west for the thriller Wicker Park, a remake of the cult French pic L'Appartement. He reteams with Wicker Park star Josh Hartnett for the tricksy thriller Lucky Number Slevin, which also stars Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, and Ben Kingsley.

What attracted you to Lucky Number Slevin?

The writing. Years ago I read a book by David Mamet - who I think is a pompous ass - but he's got a point by being really adament that actors don't drop a line and that they must say it a particular way. You realise that something like Glengarry Glen Ross has very distinctive, heightened voices that you don't really hear people talking, and where everyone speaks by the same rhythm. And actually one of the first notes I have on my script for Slevin says, "Why does everyone speak the same?" It was a criticism I had of it, and suddenly I realised, "You idiot, that's the whole point!" Here's a writer who has a totally unique voice. Whether you like it or not is up to you, but that's what got me. The script was under my bed for six months, whilst I was editing in Los Angeles, and I kept getting these calls from my agent saying, "Look, you've got to read this script, he's a great writer, he really loves Gangster No.1, he really wants you to do it." Eventually I switched the TV off and started reading.

Tell us about working with Josh Hartnett again...

Josh read the script, phoned me up and asked me how I'd do it - rather than just committing to it, the b******! It was a big departure for both of us. I enjoyed working on Wicker Park, it's a film I'm very proud of, but it was a studio movie, it was a vehicle for Josh Hartnett. We had a good relationship, and he'd had director approval on Wicker Park and chose me after seeing Gangster No.1. I knew that he liked the idea of going back to the roots of Gangster and playing with that a little bit. He was also friends with Jason Smilovic, who wrote the script, so it just all came together quite organically.

Given the strong cast, did you ever have a sense of having to prove yourself to them?

Yeah. When you have such a cast as we had, the first thing you think about when you go to work is, "I've got Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman and Ben Kingsley today for rehearsals. O-k-a-y, what am I going to say?" And then you realise that what they're looking for is everything. They look around when they're rehearsing on the set and they say, "Oh, this is a cool set." And then they're looking at a great cinematographer like Peter Sova. They're looking at each other. They're looking at a great script. And then they look at me, so actually the weight was taken away from me. They weren't getting paid any money for it, that's for sure, so they all came to the same conclusions before meeting me. I'm sure like anyone they can make your life miserable, but they were the opposite. Bruce would come in on his day off to watch Morgan and Sir Ben work, which was incredible. He was sitting beside me on the floor, watching these two people act and applauding at the end of a take.

How does your documentary past inform your work these days?

Well, all my takes are long takes. If a scene is ten minutes, every take is ten minutes because I like to feel the rhythm of it - which is OK if two guys are tied to a chair but if people are walking around, it gets a bit harder to do. Coming into a scene halfway through, I just don't get that - that to me is like making soap operas. Film should be like the stage. I'd love to do a stage play, actually, that'd be the next thing I'd like to do. After doing documentaries, you realise that you can make people in the audience react to the actors better if they're the ones moving the camera. So it's like if you were going to move to the left I'd have to keep up with your rather than me saying, "OK, now walk to the left to this point and I'll catch you here." I prefer to work with a bit more freedom, for the actors as well as me.

The film's got a very strong visual style...

Lots of wallpaper, yeah!

Does that come from your past as a photographer?

I guess. For this one I was concerned when I read the script because a lot of the scenes were in the same interior locations, so it felt it was too small. When we tried to open it out, though, we started losing the language, so I brought it back in again and just embraced it. I came up with some quirky ideas for the ideas and the decor. I'm a great fan of Wong Kar-Wei - everyone wants to make In The Mood For Love, it's such a sexy, fantastic movie - and so I watched that a million times and thought, OK, I'm not that smart, but what I'll do is get some really cool wallpaper with these Asian flowers. I'll put Lucy Liu in front of it, and then when the really heavy guys come in, they'll have to stand in front of this really girly wallpaper and it might be quite funny. I'm not the auteur that Wong Kar-Wei is, so therefore I just steal.

Lucky Number Slevin is released in UK cinemas on Friday 24th February 2006.