'Slumdog Millionaire is a fluke'

Stephen Frears remains Britain's most successful director on an international scale. Dangerous Liaisons, The Grifters, Dirty Pretty Things, The Queen, My Beautiful Laundrette — the man has directed some of the most critically acclaimed films of our times. Dangerous Liaisons, starring Glenn Close, Michelle Pfeiffer and John Malkovich, practically redefined the genre of the costume drama; while The Grifters, a hard-boiled American tale with Anjelica Huston in a career-defining role, was nominated for multiple Oscars . The Queen won Dame Helen Mirren an Academy Award for her portrayal of icy aristocracy. In Jaipur for a session titled The Director's Cut, Stephen Frears was seen in the company of long-term associate Hanif Kureishi (Frears directed Kureishi's diasporic homoerotic tale, My Beautiful Laundrette, a film that transformed Daniel Day-Lewis into an international superstar).

Excerpts from an interview:

Your Hollywood episode almost derailed your career despite the huge successes of Dangerous Liaisons and The Grifters.

Like everything in my life, Hollywood was an accident, an eccentric experience. I did Dangerous Liaisons and then I did The Grifters. And suddenly from being a 'British' filmmaker , I had to navigate the Hollywood studio system which can be quite tricky. I made a disastrous film with Dustin Hoffman called The Hero. So I moved back to London.

The Queen was a complicated subject, cannibalising on the public tragedy of the intensely shrouded world of royalty. What sort of research did this involve?

The research I always leave to my writers. But with someone like the Queen, it's like I've known her for sixty years! Not personally, but it is a persona that always looms large in your life as a British citizen.

There is something about the actresses you work with. They peak with your films, and then they disappear. Glenn Close is barely seen in major productions. Michelle Pfeiffer is nearing graceful retirement . Angelica Huston too is rather quiet.

With Hollywood, that is the catch. Things happen, you're suddenly hugely exposed. And if you take a side-step, they think you're passé. But that is not true. Glenn has been doing some fantastic work for television. And Anjelica Huston too from what I hear is working.

British cinema is always threatening to make a comeback, a renaissance that never seems to happen.

The problem with the British is that they cannot conceive of cinema as an industry. Even all my successful British films like My Beautiful Laundrette and The Queen are flukes. Even Slumdog Millionaire by Danny Boyle is a fluke. It is not representative of British Cinema as a valid industry. Even Dirty Pretty Things, which was my 'hip ' comeback, wasn't a terribly successful film, even if it was hugely influential to British cinema. A deeper problem is the fact that we are a conservative nation. This affects our cinema. A conservative nation will breed conservative cinema, which can bog down prospects.

There were rumours that you were doing way too much cocaine in Los Angeles. You had to cut short your Hollywood detour to clean up your act.

That's news to me. It is the first time that I've heard of such a rumour.

What is your next project?

I'm working on a film called Tamara Drewe.