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	Richard Loncraine is the director of THE GATHERING STORM. He spoke with HBO.com from his home in London, England. HBO: Welcome Richard Loncraine. RICHARD LONCRAINE: Thank you. Pleasure. HBO: Tell us about how you became involved in THE GATHERING STORM. RICHARD LONCRAINE: HBO had been working on this for some time. I had been working on BAND OF BROTHERS. I did Episode Two of that for HBO. That's how our paths crossed. I kind of have a love/hate relationship with television, although HBO seems to be a place where you can go with an idea that you really are not gonna get made in the studio system. And they do it extremely well. And it goes out to millions of people. But the trouble for me with television is, first of all, the canvas is a little small. It still is not the same as going out for an experiential evening in a movie theater with hundreds of people. But also I find in England, particularly, though this isn't the criticism I would level against HBO, is that you can do a film over at the BBC, it goes out one night and it never gets seen again. However good it is, often they don't repeat stuff in England. So you'll make a movie - and when I do a feature film - it's no different for me whether it's the cinema or television. I direct it in exactly the same way. I make no allowances for the small screen. So for me working as hard as one does on a movie, and then it goes out one night and disappears is kind of sad. So I'm never quite keen - I'm never quite sure how I feel about television. So when I was offered this, I was really - I didn't even think I wanted to do it. I had always assumed Churchill was a kind of a one note samba really. And this is my ignorance as I found out, because it's been an amazing learning curve. I assumed Churchill was someone that the English needed to fight Hitler, and indeed we did. But he had the reputation - if you don't research the man as I've done in the many months that have gone by - of being just a bully really. You know, aggressive, rude, cantankerous. Well he was all of those things. But he was also funny, charming, witty, erudite, complex. Depressive. He was an amazing collage of emotions and characters. But I didn't know that at the time, so I turned it down to be truthful. And then I was actually on the way to the Normandy premiere of BAND OF BROTHERS and I think one of the executives (of HBO) was walking down the train, and said hello to me because he, I guess, knew I had just worked with (Tom) Hanks and (Steven) Spielberg. And he said, I'm sorry to hear you didn't think Churchill was right. And I said, well it just isn't a subject that interests me. He said, too bad because Albert Finney... and I - I went Albert Finney- ? HBO: [LAUGHS] RICHARD LONCRAINE: - and just froze. Because he's a man who I have admired and wanted to work with all my life. So when I heard it was Finney I said look, if you haven't found a director could I, on my humble knees, please ask to be reconsidered and have a look at it. So then I read it, and it was a delightful script. Hugh Whitemore (the film's screenwriter) had written a really complex canvas. He did something remarkable. HBO: What was your greatest challenge in bringing his script to the screen? RICHARD LONCRAINE: Well the script was good. But it wasn't there, not quite. Hugh and I did a lot of work together on it. HBO: Tell us about that. RICHARD LONCRAINE: Well the ending - it didn't really end. So we eventually came up with various devices. But it's a hard one you see, because Churchill didn't actually, he wasn't prime minister at the end of our movie. It was eighteen months later that he became Prime Minister. So getting the ending was quite a challenge. One of the things that I felt it needed was opening up. There's quite a lot in Chartwell (Churchill's estate) now. But there was probably twice as much in Chartwell before. And I thought you needed to see life in other places. So I restaged a lot of the scenes. I was very anxious that we should not have a film that was all about regal buildings and historical buildings and important buildings. So I put a lot of modern architecture in the film which people forget, you know the Daily Mail, the Daily Telegraph building - I always remember the beginning of the film when Clemmie goes to see the accountant and finds out that they're bankrupt basically. The car drops her off on Fleet Street and there's an amazing modern building which was built in 1928, and our film is in 1932. So it was a four year-old building when we see the movie. I put in things like tube stations. You know subway, subway stations. So that you got a feeling of real life going on. Not just high society in pillared halls. I did quite a lot of that. Opening out the movie. Giving it more air. HBO: Hugh Whitemore told me a story, which I'd like to hear from you. RICHARD LONCRAINE: Yes. HBO: That you "acted out" the ending of the movie. RICHARD LONCRAINE: Well I probably wanted to be an actor, but my Dad thought it was such a shitty business he didn't want me to be in it. So I became a production designer and then a sculptor and then a director. So I probably do prance around slightly. And I act extremely badly which is quite good with actors. Because if you're gonna do line readings, you better be sure that they're really bad. HBO: [LAUGHS] RICHARD LONCRAINE: That way the actors only get an idea of what you want and don't think you're trying to tell them how to do it. HBO: In terms of the love story- RICHARD LONCRAINE: Yes. HBO: Talk a little bit about that. Do you think the love story was emblematic of that period? RICHARD LONCRAINE: Well I think the love story is a very important part of it. The letters Winston and Clemmie wrote to each other are heartbreaking. So the love story element in our film, I think, is crucial for you to care about Winston. Because he does behave quite badly at times. And he is a bully. All the people I talked to, I met two of his secretaries and I talked to his daughter, and there was no question he was - he was certainly - feared. I wouldn't say loathed. I think feared - but also respected. He's a man who would work your ass for three days. You think he's completely ignoring you and then suddenly turn around with a bunch of flowers. I mean when his secretary got ill after the war, there's a letter he wrote to her where she was very ill. And it was the most wonderful letter where he says, don't worry, just get well. Any problems you have, you let me know, and we'll settle them. Don't worry about money. That's all taken care of. Things he didn't have to do. You know, they weren't statutory. He was just being a good friend. HBO: Was there anything else about Churchill you discovered through your research that you found particularly remarkable? RICHARD LONCRAINE: I was surprised to find that he liked to do all sorts of strange, I mean he - he bred pigs. And he actually bred butterflies and he built walls. I had no idea that he was such a "hands on" human being. I assumed he was kind of only interested in books and politics. He was also a great wit. I didn't realize what a wit he was. I didn't know how much he liked odd things. You know, doing stuff. He loved Chartwell. Not just the house, he loved working on the grounds. And he built one of the first swimming pools, private swimming pools in England in fact. HBO: Now that's unusual. RICHARD LONCRAINE: People didn't have private pools in those days. And he built it himself with the brick layers. And there were rumors that his brick laying, when he finished in the evening, that the brick layers would come and take it all down and rebuild it because it was so shitty. HBO: [LAUGHS] RICHARD LONCRAINE: So he certainly uh - he was certainly a character. Another remarkable moment was when Mary Soames (Churchill's daughter) came to the set. I said to her, are you nervous about seeing Winston, Albert doing your father? And she said, oh darling, I've seen all the imitators you know. All the imitators. And then we took her into the editing room and showed her about six or seven minutes of scenes that Albert had shot with Vanessa. And as the lights went up, you could see little tears running down the side of her face. And she said, that's my poppa there. That's my poppa. Which was very, very moving. HBO: Tell us about working with Albert Finney, one of the most respected film stars in the industry. RICHARD LONCRAINE: Albert, I have to say, is the one who really should be getting most of the praise for this movie. Although we had a fantastic group of people. But without him being the most remarkable- I just think he becomes Churchill. And I don't think anyone will ever - I can't imagine anyone trying to take on doing him again in my lifetime. I think it's a pretty definitive Churchill really. He's an unsung star. Because most of the young people around today don't know who he is. And he was great to work with. I've worked with a lot of famous actors and I have to say Finney has to be at the very top end of all of them. Because he can be a difficult old bugger, like we all can. But he was very clever because he used to hide whatever mood he felt in under the Churchill character. So he used to be a bit grumpy with me. And we used to just fire off at each other. But I was very - I'm very fond of him and have enormous admiration. And I think actors, stars when they know you really genuinely, admire them, allow you to be cheekier than you might be otherwise. And we had great fun sparring with each other. HBO: And Vanessa Redgrave? RICHARD LONCRAINE: Vanessa produced a remarkable Clemmie. I mean she looks like Clemmie. She looks like the woman - she's a different kind of actress. You know, she comes more from a theater tradition than Albert. Although she's done a lot of movies. And her approach is very different to Albert, but what's on the screen I have to say I think works remarkably well. As the director you have to deal with - your job is to mold different people's techniques together so in the end it works. You know, there are no excuses in our business. You just have to deliver it. You know you can't say yeah, but one actor wanted thirty takes and one actor wanted two. No one's interested. They're interested in what's on the screen. But I thought she did a remarkable job. HBO: Share with us some of the day-to-day experiences. Was there anything in this process for you - having made many films - that was particularly remarkable? RICHARD LONCRAINE: I think for me one of the things I found quite amazing - this is something which is real and I'm not making it up. We were filming in an old abandoned empty house outside London. I was there very early one morning before anyone had arrived, just the night watchman. I was on the set, and it was all abandoned, and I found the props table in the corner where the propmen had been cutting out pictures of Churchill - of the real Churchill for reference, for what his clothes were like. And they had a tablefull of stuff and frames and pictures. And I was going through, looking through this stuff and I found this picture of Churchill, which I thought absolutely captured the quality and the look and the way that I thought this man should be. And I put it to one side. Then I went to get a cup of tea and when I came back, I realized that I had picked out a picture of Albert Finney. HBO: That's remarkable. RICHARD LONCRAINE: That's true. Absolutely true. And that was quite chilling in a way. Because I guess I had been living with the man, but it was mixed up with real pictures of the real Churchill. And yet this one seemed to have captured the spirit of Churchill in a way that - [LAUGHS] I didn't think anyone could. So that was quite an interesting experience. HBO: And on that note, thank you Richard Loncraine for your time. RICHARD LONCRAINE: Cheers. You're very welcome.

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