If people get so revved by watching this that they go out and batter someone, you've got to question their personality before they watched it 
British director Nick Love has crammed a lot into his 34 years, including a stint as a Ralph Lauren model and a teenage battle with drug addiction. His 2001 feature debut Goodbye Charlie Bright might have flopped at the box office, but he's since bounced back with The Football Factory. Based on John King's cult novel, it's a gritty look at soccer-related violence that's set to be one of this year's most controversial movies.
How did you become involved in the film?
I tried to option the book in 1997 but another director beat me to it. I stayed in touch with John King though, and in January last year the production company came back to me. They said: "We've got 拢500,000 - could you make this film right away?" So I wrote the script in about four days and went straight into pre-production.
How hard was it to turn the book into a film?
I learned a lot about writing from adapting the novel. One of the things I learned is that the best way to honour a book is to scrap it. The spirit of the book is in the film and some of the characters are the same, but ultimately it is a very different animal. The book is much more nostalgic, so the first thing I had to do was bring it up to date. We live in a much harder culture, and the world is a far more aggressive place. So it became much more about where football culture is at now.
There have been reports you cast some genuine hooligans in the film...
Those accusations are very wide of the mark. We very carefully picked all the extras, and I wasn't going to let any loose cannons in the film. Two or three out of about 300 were known for organised football violence, and they helped to make the fight scenes look as real as possible. But there's a big difference between the people we portray in the movie and the people who played them. I wouldn't have had anyone who was into hardcore organised violence - I didn't need the agro.
How do you answer accusations that the film glamorises violence?
If you're a filmmaker you have a moral responsibility to be truthful, and this film is a very balanced portrayal of working-class culture in post-millennial England. If people get so revved by watching this they go out and batter someone, you've got to question their personality before they watched it. And anyway, no one's proved a link between screen violence and real violence even exists.
But isn't it a little irresponsible to release it now, with Euro 2004 coming up?
We've had football firms up and down the country who have come to see the film and they don't sit there wanting to punch each other's lights out. There is always going to be a mindless minority of people who will go to Portugal and make trouble, regardless of whether they've seen the film or not. How big is my ego if I think it's so powerful it will incite people to violence? At the end of the day it's only an hour-and-a-half of entertainment.
The Football Factory is released in UK cinemas on Friday 14th May 2004.
