Congratulations on The Little Death! You made us laugh, cry and almost pee our pants; what have been some of the most interesting reactions you’ve had to the film so far?
I never expected so much laughter! It’s a comedy, of course, but there are also moments of sweetness, sadness, drama and danger. I wanted to make this film an experience. I feel like movies are becoming more and more predictable and losing that sense of surprise, so I wanted it to be surprising, not just in terms of plot but also in what emotions you feel. One minute you’re laughing and then the next you’re like, ‘Why am I going to cry?’ After 90 minutes, you’ll come out like you’ve just had sex – breathless and sweaty, going, ‘What the hell, I need a cold shower!’

No doubt it will also kick off a lot of interesting conversations around the country …
I think it’s a date movie – it’s a romantic movie and a real ice-breaker. I think on the way home, people are going to be talking about their own kinks and I think it’s going to inspire a lot of more experimental sex around the country!

You’ve been doing many press interviews and Q&A sessions with the public – can anything still make you blush or are you completely comfortable talking about sex now?
I always was. Sex doesn’t embarrass me at all. Some people have thrown me a few curveballs, but I just find sex endlessly fascinating. I think the subject of it is great, because it’s different for every person. It’s not mathematics – two plus two doesn’t equal four when it comes to sex. What gets one person off doesn’t get another person off. I find talking about sex really interesting and often very comical because it’s hard to have ego when it comes to sex. The subject makes you naked, both literally and figuratively. You can’t be cool when you’re having it, because you’re very vulnerable – it’s two bodies trying to find their way together … What’s interesting about this film is it explores that moment in a relationship when you want to admit to somebody that you have a kink and you get off doing a certain thing, and that can often be very embarrassing and there’s a lot of shame surrounding that. So the subject I found interesting was can you ever be completely honest in a relationship? And should you be? Should you bare everything or are there some secrets worth keeping? I don’t know; I’m really asking questions more than I’m answering them.

Can you remember how you first found out about sex as a child – did you have ‘the talk’ with your parents?
No I don’t think I ever did get the talk … I grew up in a day when there was no internet – I remember the internet coming in, but it took a day and a half to load one picture! I went to St Joseph’s College – Gregory Terrace, an all-boys school, and I grew up in a family of four brothers. The way boys talk about sex is really interesting. I remember finding a really soft-core porn magazine at the back of a convenience store when I was a kid and I had that magazine for like ten years … It was just boobs but I treated it like gold. These days, pornography is so prolific and disposable, and in a way I worry that sex has become a little less sacred because it’s so prevalent. I’m glad I grew up in a time when it was treated as special, and I think my romance for sex and love and intimacy comes through in the film. The movie is outrageous, of course, but I think at the end of each story and throughout the story there’s a lot of love and tenderness. I didn’t want anyone to cheat on anyone else, I just wanted to see how much room there was to play with monogamy and within a committed relationship – I thought that was an interesting subject to explore.

How did you gather the various sub-plots; were any based on stories you’d heard or did you just dream them all up?
I never steal or borrow anything, I truly don’t, I think that’s the worst thing you can do as a writer. They’re all made up. I just researched ‘fetishes’ and then when I found these fetishes I imagined what it would be like if a) I had them, or b) my partner had them. And then I would put obstacles in the way. Like making a dirty phonecall is easy … unless you’re deaf. And I just made sure that each story was something I’d never seen on screen before. I wanted desperately to surprise the audience.

This was your directorial feature debut – what challenges or unexpected obstacles did you come up against?
I’ve been on set as an actor since I was a kid, so nothing on the set or during shooting was surprising. The biggest surprise came in post-production, where I found beauty in the precision of cutting a film. I love the rhythm and timing and surgery of comedy – that’s really rewarding for me. You can cut it one way and it’s not funny, and then you shave three frames off and it’s suddenly funny. That’s amazing to me; a microsecond can make or break a joke. It’s amazing how sharp comedy has to be in order to make somebody laugh – one misstep and the whole thing is gone. So I really enjoyed that part, even though it was an enormous challenge and I barely slept for three months!

Do you find it more rewarding seeing a script right through from writing to directing? Would you find it hard to give up something you’ve written to a director to have their way with it?
It would be rewarding if I gave it to a director and they made it amazing, but it would be horrifying if I gave it to a director and they made it awful. To write and direct, all the control is yours – if it’s great, then the reward is all yours, but if it sucks, the pain is all yours. But you certainly don’t do it for reward, I did it because I really believed this was a story that could make people laugh. I think it’s the sort of film that needs to be made in this country; I think that movies in Australia are unnecessarily and consistently bleak and depressing, and I really don’t love those kinds of films. That doesn’t mean they’re bad, I’m just tired of them … Movie tickets are $20 – I want some fun. This movie really came from dissatisfaction from the sorts of movies that we’re making in this country.

Besides the soft-core porn, what else can you tell us about your childhood growing up in Brisbane?
It was great growing up in Brisbane! It’s changed a lot – sometimes it’s a place I barely recognise. It’s a shame when I come back and all the stuff I remember is gone. Being on Caxton Street now, I remember a few drunken nights here and getting pizza from the Windmill Cafe in the middle of the night. I loved Brisbane very much; it’s the city where I fell in love with movies. It’s where I used to go down to the video store, get five movies for $7 and watch as many as I could. I used to have a VHS collection, I had hundreds of them … Back To The Future, Ghostbusters, Groundhog Day and Jaws were the favourites. I remember wanting to hang on to the videos but it just became pointless. I ended up selling hundreds of them off and it was horrible, it was like losing a loved one. I just loved movies, so the fact that I got to make one and screen it here in Brisbane is really, really awesome.

What’s next for you – you’re obviously keen to continue directing features?
I would, I definitely would. I have more stories to tell and different sorts of stories to tell. I love comedy and I hope to keep doing it forever, but I’d love to keep exploring different kinds of genres. I’m working on a couple of other scripts that are completely different to this film, so I’m really curious about where this takes me – I hope this is a new and exciting chapter in my career. I just want to keep challenging myself and I’m not afraid to fail.

What’s your personal definition of success?
Just being able to tell the stories that I love and work with people who I respect and admire. If I could keep doing that forever, I’ll be happy. I don’t need to be wealthy, but I would love to keep making people laugh and pay rent at the same time. That’d be nice …