I like my films. each one represents an emotional Investment of time and life”

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CALLING THE SHOTS: 1 The 1999 American sports drama, Any Given Sunday 2 Nixon explored the life of the former US President in great detail 3 The 1986 war film, Platoon 4 Natural Born Killers, starring Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis movie to get made.

“How do you simplify this story,” Stone said, “and at the same time make it exciting and a thriller?”

The problems in putting together a viable script, however, were nothing compared to the struggle of selling the idea.

“It was turned down by every major studio,” Stone said. “That didn’t make sense to me, because the script was good, the cast was good and the budget was good. This was definitely self- censorship. I don’t believe there was an enemy such as the NSA lurking in the background, but this was self- censorship, which is a huge issue in this country [ America].

“It blocks so much of the truth from coming out,” he continued. “Every corporate board that runs a studio — more than the studio people — said no. In the end, France and Germany were the major contributors in getting the film made, along with Open Road ( Films). I was lucky to have all three along, plus there was always strong foreign sales ( appeal).”

None of which would have meant as much if Snowden himself hadn’t signed on.

“I met him for the first time in late January of 2014, when I was in Moscow,” Stone recalled. “His human rights lawyer had written a fictionalised account of the story that was somewhat in the vein of 1984 by Orwell. We purchased the book, along with a book done by The Guardian.

“There were several more meetings with Snowden,” the filmmaker continued. “Snowden cooperated with us, but he’s still a mystery, so we also used public records and I spoke to the journalists who were there in Hong Kong. We went as far as we could, and then left it to the realm of dramatisation.

“There are things we don’t know, and things that hopefully Snowden will reveal one day in a book of his own.”

In a separate interview, Quinto — who played Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald and is best known as Spock in the current Star Trek films — reported that working with Stone wasn’t what he’d expected.

“I was surprised at how endearing I found him,” the actor said. “He’s such a formidable filmmaker, but he has vulnerabilities that were so beautiful. To experience his passion for film was exhilarating.

“I’m not particularly an early- film buff, but Oliver is the most informed cinephile,” Quinto said. “When we shot this in Hong Kong, Oliver said to me one day out of the blue, ‘ What do you mean, you’ve never seen The World of Suzie Wong ( 1960)?’ It was in my room the next day, along with a bunch of obscure films from the ‘ 30s.”

Snowden was shot mostly in Germany — for financial reasons, Stone insisted, not to avoid the eyes of the US government.

“I didn’t want to have any confusion,” Stone said. “No one interfered with us. I have no knowledge or suspicion that they did. The problem in this world of 2016 is, how can you tell who is listening?

“To me, the Snowden story means so much,” he continued, “and it shocks me that neither of the presidential candidates are talking about the surveillance state we live in. I do very much feel the 1984 Big Brother vibe in this society. I don’t think any one of us can be innocent about that. We all kind of curb our behaviour to some degree. “Unfortunately, it changes the tenor of this whole thing called life.”

Everyone wants him to say what the message of Snowden is, Stone said, but he’s not interested in that sort of

COURTING CONTROVERSY: 5 Kevin Costner plays Jim Garrison, the lead district attorney in

Charlie Sheen and Michael Douglas starred in the 1987 drama, Wall Street 9 Tom Cruise plays the lead in Born on the Fourth of July