New Zealand filmmaker Andrew Niccol isn’t interested in playing it safe or kowtowing to the masses. “I don’t think about what people actually want to see,” comments Niccol, “and I’m sure there is a horrible arrogance to that. Instead, I think of what I would want to see. I must be very naive because I think if it interests me then I’m arrogant and stupid enough to believe it is going to interest other people.”

I caught up with the energetic New Zealand writer-director to talk about his latest movie, the arms trafficking melodrama Lord of War starring Nicolas Cage and Ethan Hawke. A dark, brutally honest satire, the film isn’t for the faint of heart. But then, that suits Niccol just fine.

“The way it works is, I’m always collecting things and filing them away for later,” said Niccol. “Then, if a story occurs to me – because there are a lot of things I’m interested in but no story ever occurs to me – and asks to be done, if you will, then I of course oblige it. The writing of [Lord of War] was actually quite quick, maybe four months. For me that’s quick. It can sometimes take months, maybe a year, to write a script. This one just seemed to happen quickly.”

One of the more interesting aspects of the piece is in the way the director paints evil, putting a smiling face and a calm veneer on a horrendous man responsible for death and destruction all over the globe. Cage’s Yuri Orlov is a monster, but when I asked Niccol if he thought of the character this way, he turned it around and started looking at things through the gunrunner’s eyes. “He’s not evil,” comments the filmmaker, “at least not in his mind, which is what I like about [Yuri]. We would say to him, ‘You’re responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of people,’ and he would say, ‘No, I’m not. I’m not responsible for the death of any person because I’ve never pulled the trigger. You pull the trigger. You’re responsible.’

“Of course, the only time this becomes a nightmare for him is when he crosses that line and pulls the trigger himself. But until then, he would have a completely different way of looking at this.” Niccol continues, looking at his character through a creator’s eyes. “But then, he does cross a line [shooting a man] that, in his mind, in his warped perverse sense of morality, he shouldn’t cross. But then, what I think is interesting is that he self-destructs, starts a night of self-destructive behavior, and then on that night even the hyenas run away from him. [Yuri] even puts one of his own guns to his head and it misfires. He must think to himself that he’s just destined to go on. And then, of course, he does.”

Nicolas Cage and Ethan Hawke with director Andrew Niccol on the set of "Lord of War" - Photo Copyright Lions Gate Films

To bring a monster like this to life and still make him likeable takes a major actor, and Niccol admits grabbing someone like Cage to take on the part was a major coup. “We would not be sitting here if it wasn’t for Nicolas Cage,” said the director. “There are only a certain number of actors who can, excuse the term, trigger a film like this because its unconventional material and financiers need someone that gives them confidence they’re going to get their money back. [He] was hugely important.

 “Creatively, he’s even more important, at least to me. Although [Yuri] is the Devil, I wanted the Devil to be charming, and Nicolas Cage can do that. He’s got this wonderful sense of irony. Also, because he’s such a professional he doesn’t come onto the set with any movie star bullshit. He comes very prepared. He never forgot a line, which is very important because that then gives him the freedom to play and improvise. He would listen to my ideas. I would listen to his ideas. Together we would pick the best idea. [There] was never an adversarial relationship at all with him.”

As much as the movie excited Niccol, it is the character that seems to give him his greatest joys as our conversation continues. “There is a very black comedy to this character, which I think is very interesting. The Devil is charming, and fabulous, and witty. But I think that’s fascinating. Not everyone in the world operates with [the same] moral code many of us share. The reason I think certain people can succeed is that they are not encumbered by many of these conflicts of conscience. There was a line that I didn’t use in the end, but I think is really important, he’s saying to Ethan Hawke’s character [Interpol agent Valentine], ‘What if I sleep better at night than you? I think that’s what really scares you.’”

For Agent Valentine, turning to Hawke was a no-brainer, the two having forged a long-lasting friendship since making Gattaca in 1999. “I sort of roped him into it,” chuckles Niccol. “But, he also, liked the material and he was interested in the character. Valentine is tortured. What I like about [him] is that he’s not a saint; he’s not just this do-gooder. He does have this ego where he wants his picture in the paper. [Ethan] hooked into this; that he was this guy that should only be out to catch the villain but he was also a guy who wanted the glory, too. There aren’t that many roles out there like this because there are a lot of conventional films, films he rejects all the time.

“But Ethan’s a great actor and he should work more. Personally, I think he’s too choosy.”

Getting a movie like Lord of War made still couldn’t have been easy, even with actors like Cage and Hawke onboard. Its subject matter pushes the envelope for audiences, letting them see into a world that’s both distasteful and intoxicating. It’s no secret to the writer-director, those going to his latest looking for an escapist action-adventure are going to be very surprised. “I wouldn’t like people to think they’re going to see an action film, but there are moments of tension and some cat and mouse with Ethan Hawke,” said Niccol.

“I have to do Q&A after some screenings and most times people are sitting there picking their jaw off the floor because they’re so unsure if this really happened. They’re just not ready to ask you, ‘So what’s it like to work with Nicolas Cage?’ But, you know, people can go on different levels for this film. Some people are going to go for the girls and the guns. Some people are going to go for the thriller. And, hopefully, some people are going to go to think. Hopefully, it’s a true portrayal of this world and that’s what I want people to see.”

As to accuracy, only those involved in the real world of international arms dealing are going to be able to give Niccol a pass there. Seeing as he consulted with known gunrunners, even borrowed some of their equipment, chances are pretty good he’s going to make out alright. But then, how does one get in contact with real international criminals? It’s not like they just grow on trees, after all. “It’s hard to get them on the phone,” laughs Niccol. “You can research a lot of things, though. A lot of incidents you can research because they’re documented.

Still, I did use real arms dealers in the making of the film. Like the plan you see [during the crash landing] is owned by one of the most notorious arms dealers in Africa; he’s Russian. So that plane was running real guns into the Congo a week before I was filming it with fake guns. Since then, that plane has now crashed in Uganda running a suspicious cargo and there are no pieces of it left bigger than a nut and the crew is dead. A lot of these [sorts] things kept happening to me throughout the filming.”

For Niccol, with this movie complete and critical buzz building, the only real pressing question for the filmmaker is what he’s going to do next. “I don’t know,” said Niccol shaking his head. “It’s always a challenge to get my movies off the ground because I tend to have expensive ideas, and that’s bad. As a rule, it is better if you have an unconventional idea to make it inexpensive. Don’t try to make an expensive unconventional idea because getting that made is always a trick because you need to attract actors to it that can help you get it made.”

Niccol thinks for a moment before finishing his thought. “Because, you know, nobody retires on one of my movies,” he chuckles. “Everyone takes a pay cut.”