There’s also awards talk for A Dangerous Method, another film dealing with sexual impulses. Are you worried you’ll be pigeon-holed as ‘the sex guy’?

“[Laughs] No, because they’re two different films. I suppose there was a sexual content to Connor in Fish Tank too, but Hunger is a totally different deal and so is X-Men. Perhaps in this industry it might be easier to box people off so they can categorise you, it’s more comfortable that way or easier to sell.

“But my approach is pretty simple – I look for a good story and then I look for a good captain to steer through it.”

You had a good captain with Cronenberg on A Dangerous Method…

“It was amazing, he’s like an engineer or a scientist – he works in components and then puts them all together. He’s a director that is interested in scratching the surface.

“We live is this civilised society where we’re supposed to behave in certain ways and there’s an etiquette at play. What happens when you peel back the covers and look underneath and how do we actually deal with each other in practical terms as opposed to theoretically?

“So when there’s a curiosity in a director like that, you know it’s going to be interesting, that the characters are going to be more complex and it’s going to be a really intelligent introspection.”