Nick Love on The Business

Love or loathe Nick Love's films, (Goodbye Charlie Bright, Football Factory), it's difficult to ignore them. His new film, The Business, a bright, brash story of a young criminal on the run in Spain, is hitting cinema's nationwide. We caught up with the South London director for tea and a scone...

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Did you do much research into the Costa del Crime?
I wrote it in a flat in Marbella. I was doing post-production on Football Factory and I banged it out in six weeks. When Football Factory was finished, I went straight into pre-production in Spain. I was totally knackered. I know I was a bit grouchy on set now and again. But no, I didn't do that much research apart from speaking to some people I know. It came much more from my subconscious. For example, I didn't find out exactly how they smuggled all the stuff but I knew from the folklore about the kind of things they did. So I wrote all the stuff about needing a full moon and waiting for the patrol boats to be far enough apart, knowing it was approximately, or even sometimes close to what actually happened.

Was there ever a golden era for the Costa?
There was and in a way there still is; it's just different now. Before the extradition treaty, Spain was a kind of brave new world for the criminals who escaped down there. In 1983 no one had ever smuggled drugs on that kind of scale or made that kind of money, in the way American organised crime did. There were the odd hippies smuggling dope.

You have been criticised over the moral line you take.
Yes. But I believe in staying true to the moral outlook of the character. One film magazine came in and said this and that and started grilling me, and I had to say to the guy, 'You know what, I don't give a shit about what you think because it wasn't written for your readership. You like Hollywood blockbusters or quaint British films with an upbeat ending'. To be honest, my benchmark these days is my mates. They will look at the trailer, look at the poster, find out what it's about and take a punt.

Next page • "I decided I wasn't making a film for Guardian readers"