The man who shot Interstellar on working with Chris Nolan, doing Bond 24 and more.

What were your thoughts going into the project?

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Hoyte Van Hoytema:I came into it with great humility I hope.

Ive been in awe of Chriss collaboration with Wally and I think that they did some beautiful work together.

But at the same time youre thinking okay, what can I bring to the table.

When I met with Chris it was just very inspiring meeting him.

I just felt that if he would offer this project to me I would not say no.

It was too much fun and too inspiring to not consider it.

So I just have to mantra for myself that, you know, Im not Wally.

He just started the dialogue with me and that has been great ever since.

What surprised you the most about working with him?

But he also knows the history of it and the storytelling side of it.

I mean, hes just extremely thorough in all these sections.

It literally is a very pure obsession with the medium of film itself.

So that was kind of striking.

And if youre on the same page with that, hes very accessible.

It just becomes fun then.

It becomes very inspiring.

Did you create a shorthand pretty quickly?

On the debate of film versus digital, are you comfortable working either way or do you prefer film?

I have to say I love film above all.

I have the most affinity with celluloid and I feel most comfortable shooting that.

The whole thing that is worse is that it has been a discussion in the first place.

This was the first time you shot at least part of a movie in IMAX.

what was that like for you?

I read that you were carrying that huge camera on your back for most of the shoot.

I have to say I love big format.

I always loved medium format photography for instance.

Its exposing a bigger negative.

So getting the IMAX camera was very nice.

So I was just very determined to get the bloody thing on my shoulder.

We re-engineered the camera a little.

We took some stuff off, you know.

Thats how I ended up shooting most of the IMAX stuff handheld.

I think it was more about just a will to do it than anything else, you know.

Did you look at any other sci-fi movies going into this?

This film doesnt have one sci-fi movie as an inspiration.

It is inspired by a lot of films for particular reasons, you know.

And then there are a lot of sci-fi movies like2001orAlienorThe Right Stuff, which is not sci-fi.

And then also Ken Burns documentary,The Dust Bowl.

I mean these are all films that have elements that have inspired us to do certain specific things.

Youre doingBond 24next with director Sam Mendes.

With shooting starting in December, have you had talks with Sam about how he wants that to look?

I cant talk about Bond yet so you have to forgive me.

But I am a Bond fan and if I wasnt excited I wouldnt have taken the job.

Interstellaris out now in theaters everywhere.

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