HEART-THROBS ON THE HIGH SEAS

Just a typical day coming home from work, this one (left). We didn’t actually film in Greece this time but on the glorious Croatian island of Vis. There would often be early starts – usually 6am – and we’d generally head home about 6pm, ready for the first glass of wine of the evening, in some gorgeous outside café at 7.30pm. This was the 15-minute commute home, on a speedboat, with the most spectacular scenery. It certainly beats the District Line on the London Underground. Obviously, sitting in between Pierce Brosnan and Colin Firth is a chore too!

I love these guys. The banter between the two of them is great. Once, on the boat, Colin got alarmed and said, ‘I can see paparazzi.’ Pierce just looked at him and said, ‘And what are you going to do about it?’

Colin is a very serious actor. So is Pierce – he’s wonderfully Irish and quite spiritual, and he gives the film an emotional heft with one particular part of the storyline. But there is something about the music of Abba that gets everyone embracing their fun side. Oh they objected all the time. ‘Do we have to dance?’ ‘We are not wearing platforms.’ Pierce in particular went on as if it was hell being forced to do these things, but I think it was their secret fantasy. They loved the dancing during the big ensemble pieces – not least because they had all these beautiful young dancers helping them with the moves.

So much of this project was about the boats, too. One of the most spine-tingling moments comes during a big production number of Dancing Queen, which is performed on the water. We had 150 dancers on boats and you could hear the backing track for miles around. I will never forget seeing all of that.