Alfonso Cuarón, how involved were you in the design of this futuristic world in London?

Cuarón: Obviously, this takes place in the near future, but the only reason it does is because of the infertility of the people. The infertility we use as a metaphor, and if it were a pure science-fiction movie we would go into the whys and the reasons for the infertility. We decided that we didn't care about it.So you didn't want to go all-out as far as a futuristic world?

Cuarón: There was a lot of debate about that. They are not supersonic cars, but ones that are familiar, but if you look closely you will never have seen that car before. The billboards are familiar, but different. ... I brought the art department pictures from Sri Lanka, Iraq, Northern Ireland, Somalia, Chernobyl, the Balkans. ... We had to reference things today that have become part of the human conscience.How did two-time Academy Award winner Michael Caine become the part of Jasper?

Cuarón: We always thought of that part for Michael Caine, so we were delighted he took it. ... When he made the costume fitting he said, "I want to play this like John Lennon" because he was friends with Lennon, and he told me [Lennon] talked a bit nasally, and if you see his performance, he has that nasal kind of way. And so we're doing all these makeup fittings, and he ... goes to look at himself in mirror, and he becomes this other character. At that moment his wife walks into the room and goes next to him and says, "Have you seen my husband?" She didn't recognize him at that moment.It is a different role for Sir Michael, isn't it?

Cuarón: You've never seen Michael Caine farting before. Here you see Michael Caine farting and smoking joints. That is so alien to what he is. It's just that he is such an amazing actor.The casting is pretty exceptional, isn't it?

Cuarón: I got everyone I wanted. Clive is the vessel for our emotional story for this film. With Claire, it was important who was going to play her. In the book it was [an] African girl, but she would have to know enough English to speak. ... [We did] not want to limit our choices just because of some conceptual thing to miss a great actress, so we opened up our scope and ended up with Claire, and she stripped the whole thing from sentimentality.We heard that you weren't interested in doing a science-fiction project at first. Is that true?

Cuarón: True. I was not interested in the project. I didn't respond to the material. I was not interested in doing science fiction. ... The book takes place in a very posh universe. I love [P.D.] James, but I couldn't see myself doing the movie. Nevertheless the premise kept on haunting me, for weeks and weeks and weeks. ... I used the book as a jumping-off point.Did you divert a lot from the book?

Cuarón: Yes. In the book Kee doesn't exist; it's [the] Julianne Moore [character] who was pregnant, and we just took a big departure there. ... We did have to honor the part of the story of the immigration [addressed in the book], but we created the whole thing with the refugees. We took the book as a point of departure to look at the state of men now, and added things like the Homeland Security and the whole idea of what is happening outside in the world.Did the author see the final version of the film?

Cuarón: She did see the final version, and it is quite different, and she said she is proud to be associated with the film.Do you have a grim view of the future?

Cuarón: I have a grim view, not of the future, but of the present. I believe that evolution is happening and human understanding is occurring and that the young generation is the one that is getting some new perspective of reality of what's going on in the world. The new generation will prove that the Earth is going around the sun, not the sun going around the Earth.

Claire-Hope Ashitey, how did you get this role?

Ashitey: I got this in pretty much a traditional audition process. I went to audition and then went through a read-through with Alfonso, and then a month later I went for a screen test, and then waited for a month and a half, and then got the part and went to work two days later.How did you prepare for this, and working with all these Oscar-caliber actors?

Ashitey: I didn't have a lot of time, honestly, to dwell on it. I was cast, and two days later I was on the set. That's quite a good thing, because the character is out of her element and doesn't know what's going on, so it worked well for me. Her character is strong and defiant, and she thinks she can take care of herself, but can't in this crazy and chaotic world [that] she doesn't understand. I related to that. It was a tremendously steep learning curve. I didn't know how long it would take to set up and rehearse, and you have one or two times to do it right. It was great to see and to understand, and great experience. A lot of actors don't have that no matter how long their careers are. I know I learned so much, and especially with Clive and Michael and Julianne.It's admirable that you still want to continue your studies at the university while doing this movie and the one you're filming now, Exodus, by British director Penny Woolcock, which is a modern take on the ancient Bible story. How do you juggle it all?

Ashitey: I do want to continue my studies. That's a challenge for me, and I want to continue it no matter what happens with my career. ... It would be really nice to not have to sit in the dirt and dust and mud like I have done in [Exodus and Children of Men], so if anyone wants to give me a job wearing a gown and shoes, then go ahead.What is your take of the future?

Ashitey: I try to be upbeat when I pick up the papers or turn on the TV and see the horrendous things that people do to each other. It's hard to hold on to that optimism, but at the same time I believe in the general goodness of humankind and that people are not selfish and awful. We all need to know that we all live on the same Earth and need to get along together.

Clive Owen, you've had a lot of computer-generated effects in your films, like Sin City and this one. How aware are you of that during the filming?

Owen: Yeah, hugely aware of it. It's part of it. It's one of the elements of making movies that I actually really enjoy. I love the collaboration of doing shots like those in Children of Men, because there is something about filmmaking that if it was just about putting great directors, great scripts and great actors together and you're guaranteed a great film, that would be one thing, but that's not the case. There aren't rules. There is something elusive, that's out of any individual's control, that makes a film work or not work, and when you're doing one of those hugely ambitious long sequence shots, it's a genuine collaboration. It's everyone pulling together to try and make something happen. ... We'd have to rehearse for a very, very long time, and it was very painstaking and specific, but then when we came to shoot it, it had to feel like we were catching it on the run. You have to feel like you're in the thick of it, and it's all about pacing. If you hold a beat a bit too long, it will suddenly feel a bit manipulative, like he's held there until we see the tank just over his right shoulder, or whatever. So we worked very, very specifically about what we wanted to see and what we wanted to catch, and when we went for it we had to shake that up and keep energy that was much looser than that. What's the story about the one scene with blood on the lens during one of the battle scenes?

Owen: Alfonso was then very worried because the blood then splattered on the camera, and [cinematographer] Emmanuel Lubezki said, "But that's brilliant. It's brilliant." But collectively, at the end of that take there was a sense by everyone that that was it, that we nailed that one. Then Alfonso decided that we were going with it, that that was the best take. It worked. What was it like working with a newcomer like Claire?

Owen: She's a very, very talented and lovely actress, and it's just really about making sure that she feels comfortable in that environment. She hasn't done that many films, and this is a big film, a very ambitious film. So you don't have to talk about it, but everyone is very aware of making her feel confident or comfortable. It's a given that actors do their best work when they're confident, and if their confidence goes, the work is not going to be as good. So you're just constantly trying to create an environment where people feel comfortable and confident to do their thing. But she was lovely to work with. It was great casting. I mean, I think that Alfonso is a very sort of pure, visionary director, and he just cast the best person for the part. What's it like working with Alfonso?

Owen: I was—and now I'm an even bigger fan—a huge fan of Alfonso's. He was very, very high on the list of directors that I wanted to work with. Even some of his films that were maybe not as commercially successful I think are very special. He's a highly original and talented director. He's got huge talent. When he first sent me the script, I wasn't sure about the part. I didn't quite know why he wanted me to do it. It's a highly unusual lead part. The character is in every scene, but it's very unusual traits that he's got. It's not the kind of part where you can kind of do your thing as an actor, in a way. It's about sacrificing yourself to Alfonso's vision and not getting in the way of it, which seemed to be more important than doing any acting. But I went and met him, and I talked to him, and I found him hugely exciting, and he talked to me about his whole vision of the film and his take on the movie. Then I came on board, and the first thing that he said, he said, "I love working with actors. I love the collaboration of that. We're going to do this movie together." And he was very true to his word. ...

It was really, genuinely a brilliant collaboration through the whole movie. He kept me completely in the loop in all the post-production. He sent me various cuts and edits, and there were endless conversations. Still, now, as we're taking the film out there and sort of putting it out there, it still feels like that. So it feels like a very, very special collaboration, and I do genuinely think that he's a very rare and unique talent. The thing about his movies is that they're whole visions. He doesn't do that thing of pandering to what he thinks the commercial market wants. He makes his movies. He has a very singular vision, and he goes out there and does that. I think that he's very special.Did you know about the P.D. James novel before doing the film?

Owen: Well, I didn't know the book, and I read it afterwards. Obviously, whenever you do an adaptation of a book, that was the starting point and a huge inspiration for the movie. But then Alfonso, I think, had a lot of other things that he wanted to discuss. Alfonso has been very clever with this movie. He's actually using the film set in the future as an excuse to talk about present worries, concerns and fears that we all have. It's an incredibly relevant vision of the future because he's really looking ahead and saying, "If we're not careful, this is where things could be going." I don't think that the film is that futuristic. If you look at the opening scene, my character walks into a café, gets inside and a bomb goes off. That's the beginning of the movie. That's the world we're in now. That's not futuristic. That's incredibly relevant. I think that it's not that far-fetched. There are endless images in this movie that we've seen and we're sort of already familiar with. He's obviously taken it further than the real thing, but I just don't think that it's a fantasy. Can you talk about the childbirth scene?

Owen: His sort of objective in this movie is to viscerally put you in the action, and the best way to do that is to keep in as much real time as possible, and to not cut away and not do this sort of manipulative "single," "single," where you feel it and you know the sort of movie territory that you're in. He wanted to put you into the thick of it. So that scene was about just trying to viscerally connect with the audience. Now, I was present at the birth of my two children, and so I had those things to draw on. I was in the thick of it both times, and I remember feeling a bit like this in the movie. The strongest that I remember that day is that it was towards the end of the shoot, and it was a very, very long day, and we went well into the evening, because it was only take and we had to make sure that we had it. Alfonso would go, "We have to just try one more." And we would keep going and keep going. The day turned into a night shoot as well. Was that a real baby?

Owen: No. There was an animatronic baby, and some CGI stuff was done afterwards. But again, you've got all the camerawork to consider. ... The whole movement of the camera at the very end when the baby arrives is incredibly specific, where that camera has to settle and see it. So, again, it was one of the genuine collaborations where everyone was coming together and trying to achieve something pretty extraordinary. Your character of Theo seems very depressed.

Owen: It's a highly unusual lead character for a movie of this size, really, because for the first half of the movie the guy doesn't even want to be there. The guy is dragged into the movie. He's very reluctant, and it's very unusual to play a lead character that is apathetic, cynical, depressed, drunk, sad, really. Overwhelming sadness was the thing. Now, they're unusual traits. That's not usually the sort of lead character in a movie, and eventually he does get engaged, but it's about the loss of—Theo sort of embodies the loss of hope. There is a hopelessness about him. He's given up and thinks that there is no point to anything, but through the movie he does become engaged again. What about working with Michael Caine?

Owen: Well, Michael Caine is just a legend. He's been at the top for as long as I've been around, and there is a reason, because he is just a fantastic man and a very special talent. And we had a very strong connection because we'd been on films with Mike Hodges, who did the original Get Carter, which was a very important film in Michael's career, and Croupier was a very important film in my career. So we had that strong connection, and the most important things in those scenes was that that was the one place where Theo relaxes.