Dramas like this arent necessarily easy to push through Hollywood these days.

WasThe Gamblertough to get going?

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Not really, just because Mark Wahlberg was a champion for the project.

Prior to me coming onto this, it was very much a passion project for him.

But it was greenlit when I came onto it.

Do you think its an anti-materialist film in some ways?

Youre the first person to ask me that question.

He wants to blow those up so he can find, I guess, a form of spiritual wealth.

He is a very anti-materialistic guy, I guess you could call it, yeah.

So he almost becomes like a too-big-to-fail bank.

I wondered if that was intentional?

I never looked at it as an allegory of that.

The idea of accumulation and over-extension is what can undo many of us.

There are repercussions for their actions, and thats increasingly rare in mainstream Hollywood cinema.

Did it feel good to step back to something like this?

It wasnt initially my intention to not do the sequel and do this film.

I had other plans that I still have, but theyre just taking longer than I thought.

And I can come at it from an objective perspective.

But in this case, when I read it, I immediately saw it, I understood it.

And I liked the quest aspect of it.

You learn a lot about them through conversation.

What was your approach to shooting that?

Was it quite spontaneous or did you storyboard heavily?

I didnt storyboard those particular scenes, because again it was an opportunity to tell a dialogue-heavy story.

So many of them were people of few words, which gives you the opportunity to approach it visually.

The same withApes, obviously; apes dont talk, at least when I was working on it!

So again, its a little bit like shooting silent cinema you have to tell the story through pictures.

This was something different.

How do I place the camera here?

How do I set this up, because everyones very static in a lecture.

I really let the actors lead me, and work in that framework.

I approached those as though I was shooting a western.

I wonder if you could talk a little bit about what youre doing next?

Im working on a couple of things.

Im working on a science fiction film, and also a science fiction TV show [Echo Chamber].

Ive read that youre a fan of Philip K Dick, so can we expect anything along those lines?

It is, in the sense that its very grounded and relatable to our world.

Its not space opera or anything like that.

Rupert Wyatt, thank you very much for your time.

The Gambleris out in UK cinemas on the 23rd January.