Gareth Evans

I hadn't seen 'The Devils' until about two months before we started writing 'Apostle.' It would always play in documentaries about extreme cinema or documentaries about censorship in the U.K., because it had a very controversial history.

I get really involved with my choreography team and my stunt guys so I know what the process is for what they're doing, so when I am setting up shots I know how to show the complexity of it and I can show it in a way where the camera becomes the eyes of the audience.

It's not fun when you're dipping yourself into water. No matter how much you try to heat it, it's always going to feel a little bit cold.

When it came to the 'Raid' films, everything is adrenalized, crowd-pleasing. It's a roller coaster. You can watch an action scene unfold and cheer at the end of it.

I'm not a massive fan of POV shots usually. I find them to be quite distracting; they remove you from the story you're telling.

I feel like audiences will get behind a hero like that. They get behind people who are not necessarily going to power-drive their way through a situation.

If you watch 'Armour of God' and 'Police Story' there's a clarity in the editing and shooting that showcases moments of the choreography.

I really like the 'Bourne' films but the editing style during the action scenes has been overdone.

I had made an independent film - 'Footsteps' - in the U.K. that hadn't really done anything, so my wife suggested we head to Indonesia and film a documentary about the indigenous martial art Silat.

Films like 'True Romance' and 'The Last Boy Scout' stuck with me since I saw them when I was young, on every different format.

As long as people watch my work I'm fine.

I've always loved stories involving small groups of people going up against overwhelming odds, and 'The Raid' leaves the audience totally in the dark about which character is going to make it through to the end alive.

My dad's weekend treat to me as a kid would be to get me the latest Jackie Chan or some old Bruce Lee classic from the video rental van when it came up our street - I couldn't get enough.

I tend to gravitate towards sitcoms more and documentaries.

I grew up watching lots of different films, lots of different styles and genres from lots of different countries, so 'Apostle' is like a reflection of that eclectic taste I've had since childhood that has seen me consume as many horror films, thriller films, action films, and martial arts films.

The most interesting thing about horror and thrillers is when there's something deeper going on in the subtext of the film.

Doing long shots, no matter how good the fighter is, fatigue sets in, and mistakes crop up.

I very, very rarely have a shot that lasts under one second. Every shot should have enough breathing room to have a sense of clarity and purpose.

In a typical martial arts film, you have a hero shot: a close-up tight angle of the hero looking past the camera, right before he defeats the opponent. That's cool, but it's not my thing. I don't like posturing.

I have my rules of thumb, but, you know, making movies should always be fun.

Indonesia's been good to me. It's given me my career.

There are a lot of people in the world who are very good at martial arts but that doesn't make them good screen fighters. It's almost two different disciplines.

My wife is Indonesian-Japanese... and what happened is, she found me doing a documentary on pencak silat. And through the process of doing that documentary I had fallen in love with silat and learnt enough about the culture that I could comfortably live and work in Indonesia.

Yes, part of me was like - 'The Raid 1' and '2' were amazing for me, incredible for me, but I didn't want to just be doing 'The Raid' films all the time.

What we did with 'The Raid 2' - I felt that we kind of closed that off nicely in 'The Raid 2.'

I'll always end up coming back to Jakarta because I got given my career by being here. I want to be able to come back and keep making movies here.

There are moments in 'The Raid 2' where I wanted to use the camera to question screen violence.

I way prefer Jackie Chan films to Bruce Lee films.

I think all martial arts have a brutality to them.

Martial arts tend to share the same style and movements. Its just the packaging that's different.

The one thing I've always loved about Jackie Chan in his films - and that I related to a lot - was the fact that they make his heroes vulnerable.

Assault On Precinct 13' was amazing - a big influence. 'Escape From New York' as well.

When I was nine I wrote my first little script and it was terrible and thank God none of us had a video camera so there's no evidence of this.

I'd always wanted to be in the film industry in the U.K. but I didn't really push myself to get myself noticed.

There were a lot of Indonesian films made in the Seventies and Eighties that had silat and karate built into them, but most had these mystical elements. People jumping into trees and turning into jaguars, that kind of thing. They were fun movies but not great movies.

On an analytical level, what's so special about the Asian approach to action is that there is a time signature to the fighting. Punch, punch, kick, block, block, block, punch, punch, block. It's like percussion. It's got rhythm.

When I did 'The Raid 1,' it was because I spent two years trying to get the budget for this other movie that I really wanted to make. I couldn't find a budget, couldn't get that up and running.

A lot of actors in Indonesia, they end up taking a lot of television work because film work isn't really the main thing here, it's mostly TV, and TV here kind of sucks.

I don't like to get ahead of myself.

The Raid' is a violent movie, without a doubt. I'm not going to say it isn't. But I feel there's a difference between showing something violent and then cutting away from it and showing something violent and then lingering on it.

When I was a kid the first Bruce Lee film I ever saw was 'Enter The Dragon,' and after that I was hooked. I really wanted to see more, but I was only five or six years old. I was way too young, and my mum really didn't want me watching them.

It sounds weird now, but I was doing web videos to teach people the Welsh language.

I'm a parent, I raise two kids, you get afraid of what the world has got in store for people, you know what I mean?

A Field in England' to me was a mind blowing experience. It's such a special tone.

I was supposed to make another action film after 'The Raid 2.' It was going to be my first U.S. film. And then that kind fell by the wayside.

I love an action sequence that's not just purely about the rollercoaster of it, but a sequence that allows the storytelling to come through.

I've watched so many shows where I've been blown away.

In a drama, you're always looking for things to create conflict with.

I know 'The Godfather II' there are elements that you can get away with watching without watching the first one, but you wouldn't get the full experience of it. There would be a lot of stuff that would be completely confusing to you.

I would never have watched 'Back to the Future II' without seeing the first one because you can't follow it.