Ioan Gruffudd: They were wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. It was a great pleasure for a young actor like myself to be surrounded by such actors. When you're presented by that, you raise your game, your level. It was just amazing.
Rachel (Church Times): Michael, when you saw Ioan, did you know that 'he was the man'?
Michael Apted: As soon as I met him, I can see that soulfulness that he had in him. That sort of emotion that he had in him. It wouldn't do to have a Wilberforce that was kind of icy and cold. The other thing that Ioan brought to the table was that he already had a really substantial hit in America with "Fantastic Four," so that also gave the film some marquee credibility. So in many many fronts, he was clearly the man for the job.
Vicky (Premier Radio): Was patching up the film difficult?
Michael Apted: One of the crucial decisions for me was to really play the romance between Wilberforce and Barbra all the way throughout the film. One of the problems, if you do the film in a lineal way she doesn't come in until the third act. I loved the relationship. So often you'd have a romance in the story and it doesn't feel organic. All the woman says is 'Don't do it! Don't go. Stay at home!' But with her, she really gave him a swift kick in the back and said, 'Get on with it.' So she was truly organic to the story. To me, it gave a very useful dramatic device in really holding the story together. It was a difficult film to structure. That was 20 years of life. It was hard to compress it and make it coherent, but that romance gave a real structure for it. It makes it emotional, and it makes it accessible - which is what movies have to have. It can't just be ideas or subjects.
Courtney (Christian Today): The church has been very supportive in promoting Amazing Grace. Did you expect this kind of response from Christians?
Michael Apted: The challenge of the film was to try to get a balance between the religious part of the story and the secular part of the story. The politics in the story was the tight rope that I walked with the company (Bristol Bay Productions), because I didn't want to turn it into a faith-based film. Then I thought it might seem maybe to the secular audience as proselytising. On the other hand, I didn't want to diminish the spirituality in the film, because I thought that was a very important ingredient in the Wilberforce story. The way that both politics and religion co-existed in his life, and he was able not only to have a spiritual life - which formed his courage and vision - but to live in the world of politics and achieve a political ambition.
Jo (Independent Catholic News): How long did it take to make this?
Michael Apted: Shooting? Quite quick. We shot it in 47 days.
Courtney (Christian Today): According to Producer Ken Wales, planning for the film took roughly seven years?
Michael Apted: Different scripts have probably been around for seven years, but this particular story really got going two years ago. We came into this in 2005.
