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The women in the film are composites. How did you decide what to stress?
The thing that impressed me was not only the fact that a woman had been in love with him, but many women. And some of them even asked him for marriage. So I condensed them into Julia, and I, we added or changed things so that she wouldn?t be identified with any particular character. But the essence of her character was someone with a degenerative illness falling in love with him and convincing him to write a book that was taken from reality.

What made you decide to cast Belen Rueda?
I think she was very natural. In the audition she did, she was natural and intense. I didn?t know that she was natural watching her on TV. Although it was a completely different context, it was comedy, but she delivered lines in a very natural way. My only question was whether she would be able to play in a very strong scene dramatically with that naturalism, and she did.

How did you know she was capable?
The thing was, we had a bunch of very good actresses in Spain that could have played that role perfectly. But I just thought that she delivered the best audition. I like the idea of giving people the opportunities and then changing the context, coming from TV, going to the movies. Why not?

You composed all the music for ?The Sea Inside,? and have done so for all of your films. Do you sometimes compose before shooting a movie?
Yeah, sometimes.

What was the process of composing for this movie?
What I had very clear in mind when I, because this time I didn?t start it until the final cut was finished, but I thought about a blanket.

Like a big section of strings joining Ramon. Instead of having, for instance, in ?The Others,? we had cello solos and flute solos. I wanted to be a big section, like Ramon is not alone. I thought that, I never developed that. I thought about using some Gregorian chants as a reference, but we didn?t do that. I developed three themes for each character: Rosa, Julia, and Ramon. I also wanted to explore the Celtic sounds, because [it?s] connected with Ireland through, it?s been connected for centuries, through Celtic music.

Did you play the music on the set?
No. A couple of times, I?ve recorded something, I bring some stuff. ?The Others? was the last time I used music to inspire the children. When I want them to be horrified. No, as I say, most of the work comes afterwards.

Tamar Novas, the young actor who plays Javi, is fantastic. There?s a great scene where he doesn?t realize what Ramon is going off to do at first. Was that artistic license or did it happen like that?
No. What is real about the character of the nephew, he?s a mechanic now and he fixed the chair for Ramon. And also, the idea of Ramon being the head of the family, someone you could consult, he was like kinda [that] for all of the nieces and nephews, so I wanted that to show up in the film. But, actually, I can?t imagine that the affair was very sad and emotional, but I just let [it get] carried away dramatically.

Do you have plans to make other films in America any time soon?
If there was a story, I will go wherever it is.

Would you like to work more often?
I think it?s good to do one film every two years. That?s nice. I know there?s some directors who can, Woody Allen for instance is compulsive, Steven Spielberg. I need to have rest. I need to absorb the world and come up with something. And also, otherwise my family would hate me.

When you do make another film, are there themes you want to explore?
That you mean for the future? I really haven?t thought about it. I have some ideas, but never have been able, so far, to really think seriously about them. But I always try to surprise myself.

Were there any films that inspired you to make this movie?
Yeah, sure. Before I started ?The Others,? I watched ?The Haunting.? I watched haunted house films. ?The Innocents,? for instance. With this film, I watched ?Secrets and Lies,? remember? ?Whose Life is it Anyway,? which was a great film. ?Wonderland? by Michael Winterbottom, which was a film that really?I loved it.