The Golden Compass is the big-budget adaptation of Philip Pullman’s controversial children’s fantasy (which was known as Northern Lights in the UK). The film is written and directed by Chris Weitz, previously known for his comedies American Pie and About a Boy, which he worked on with his brother Paul. “If I’d heard that the guy who made American Pie was tackling this project, I’d be a bit nervous too,” he tells David Grove.

The Golden Compass, like the other books in Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, is a very complex book. How did you, as director and screenwriter, translate it for the screen?

I started with Pullman’s basic inspiration for the books which was this amazing little girl, Lyra, and the idea of a curious child who went places she wasn’t supposed to be, and saw things she wasn’t supposed to see, because she’s so curious. From that point, that basic childlike curiosity, you add the elements of these huge historical events that unfold while she’s hiding in the cupboard and overhearing all of this stuff.

In telling a story like this, you start with the characters, start with reality, and then add the fantasy elements, which the audience will believe much more if they first identify with the characters, especially Lyra. Lyra’s adventure really begins when she finds the golden compass, which draws the attention of Mrs. Coulter, played by Nicole Kidman.

How much contact did you have with author Philip Pullman during the scripting and filming process?

Philip Pullman and I kept in constant correspondence throughout the whole process. Establishing a warm friendship with Philip has been one of the best things about making this film. The thing about Philip is that he’s a very nice man and as a collaborator, he was very sympathetic about the challenges of turning the book, especially a book as complex as this, into a film. He knows there has to be changes, and that some good things from the book had to be discarded for narrative and cinematic purposes. He gets that.

When you adapt a novel, sadly, the first thing you do is take out your red marker and cut out whole scenes from the book in order to translate it into a workable screenplay. This was no different. With The Golden Compass, that often meant me creating whole new scenes and new dialogue from scratch, based on what I thought certain characters would do and say. We both made suggestions and exchanged ideas and Philip has been kept in the loop from day one.

Your background is in comedy. Directing a genre film is quite a change for you…

Yes, and I expected the fans to be very sceptical. I’m the biggest fan of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series and if I’d heard that the guy who made American Pie was tackling this project, I’d be a bit nervous too, because I have no experience working in the genre. I’ve only done movies with actors walking around and talking to each other, so tackling a project like this was very daunting.

But I wrote the script, I feel like I’m more passionate about the material than any other director could be, and I’ve put a lot of ambition into this film. When I first turned in my script to the studio, I got nervous and backed away from directing, and then the studio approached another director who then left the project. New Line came back to me, and I accepted, and I’m glad I did.

Technically, you had a lot of stuff to learn?

Absolutely! The learning curve has been very steep because I have no experience working with visual effects. I’m not like the guy who directed The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, Andrew Adamson, who’d worked on the Shrek films before he directed Narnia. Normally, a director on a film like this would have had lots of previous experience with CGI animation, but that’s not the case with me, so I’ve had to learn along the way.

I’m humble enough to admit I didn’t know anything when I started, and I think a good director is one who can admit things like that and then hire the best people in the field to make his vision come true. Hire people, effects people, who are smarter than you are. That’s what I did. I do know how to stage scenes and translate characters to the screen. I know how to make films and tell stories, which I think is the most important thing.

You cast a complete unknown, actress Dakota Richards, in the pivotal role of Lyra Belacqua.

Yes, I knew we were going to have big stars like Daniel Craig and Nicole Kidman in the adult roles so I asked New Line if they’d let us do sort of an open casting call for the role of Lyra. I wanted to cast a wide net in the hopes of finding a young actress who was extraordinary because I wanted a new face for Lyra. We picked Dakota, and I’m so proud of the job she did on the film. She’s a fine actress and she possessed a lot of Lyra’s qualities.

We found Dakota at a casting call in England, and then we sent the tapes to Philip who, without my suggestion or anyone else telling him about Dakota, singled out Dakota himself as the one who should play Lyra. She brings a freshness to the film that a trained actor wouldn’t have.

What were the most difficult scenes for her?

Towards the end of filming, it was basically just me and Dakota and the visual effects work, so Dakota was basically acting in front of screens the whole time. An example is a scene that happens near the end of the film where Lyra is talking with her friend Iorek, who’s a giant polar bear, and she has to say goodbye to him. Like all of the animal characters in the film, Iorek is created with CGI, so Dakota was doing this emotional scene staring at a bear head that was on a stick. That’s a hard thing for any actor to do, and she did a great job.

Every human character in the film has their own daemon, their own familiar…

Yes, in the world of The Golden Compass, every character has their own parallel daemon familiar; a creature that comes out of their soul and takes an animal form. The children’s daemons have the ability to change at will while an adult’s daemon is fixed into a single animal form. We created green-screen models of every possible animal there is and we’d put them on a wall during filming so the actors could see what they were dealing with.

How did you first discover The Golden Compass?

I read the book when I was shooting the film About a Boy in London in 2000. What made me want to read it was that I’d heard it was a book that was written for children but that it was secretly really meant to be enjoyed by adults. I was blown away by the depth and intelligence of the book. I read that, and then I immediately read the next book, The Subtle Knife.

I think these books are some of the finest books of their kind ever written. Like a lot of kids, I grew up loving Tolkien, but I really think these books are better. In terms of their scope and the emotional depth of the characters, I think they’re much stronger. I also had a connection to The Golden Compass in that the story’s set at an Oxford school and I attended an Oxbridge College. I did three years at Cambridge, studied English Literature at Trinity, so I was familiar with this world.

Were you influenced by Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy at all?

Not really. I’m influenced by the scope of those films, the scale of that trilogy, but that’s about it. His Dark Materials is a totally different project. First and foremost, this film is about human beings and their souls, before we get to the fantasy elements. I would say a bigger influence would be a film like Lawrence of Arabia in terms of the wide scope, the wide open look of that film.

I believe every story, in any genre, has to be grounded in reality. I think fans are getting tired of the CGI-intensive films. You look at the original Star Wars films and there was an organic quality to those films, with the man-made effects and the location filming they did, that was missing from the most recent Star Wars films. We filmed at Shepperton Studios, but we also did a lot of location filming - from Oxford to Norway to Switzerland - and I think that made the film look more believable in terms of helping ground the story in reality.

Our film has lots of CGI, of course, but what I’ve always kept in mind is that what I loved about these stories is the relationships.

How did you approach the darker elements of the book?

The book has a very dark tone at times and I didn’t want to change that in the film. Yes, the heroine of the story is a child, but there’s some very dark elements to the story and I wanted to keep that in the film. The villains in the story are trying to abduct the children and destroy their souls. That’s a terrifying idea, especially if you’re a parent.

Lyra’s journey is very challenging and terrifying at times and I wanted to treat that in the film with the same emotion and intelligence as the book did. There is violence and suffering in the film, but at the same time, I think the whole family can see this film, certainly intelligent children. The story was created for both smart children and smart adults and that’s because it doesn’t dumb-down anything.

There was talk you might shoot two films back-to-back, like The Matrix sequels. What’s the status of His Dark Materials as a possible trilogy?

First of all, His Dark Materials, all of the books, could never be condensed, in my opinion, into just two movies. It would take three movies. As for the trilogy, you know, New Line wants to see how The Golden Compass will perform before they shell out hundreds of millions of dollars to do more films. I believe this film will be successful and that the next two films will be shot back-to-back, and I’m looking forward to that.

The Golden Compass is currently on general release in the US and UK.