Eric, you have resisted previous attempts to adapt your book for the screen. Why was that and what made you choose to work with Richard Linklater?

Schlosser: �I was approached by a big Broadway producer wanting to do a musical of the book but I just didn�t see it� But seriously, after the book came out I met with various documentary filmmakers and I was really up for this. However, all of the options seemed problematic. You have to remember that this was before Michael Moore had shown - with Bowling For Columbine - that documentaries could have a life in theatres. I was mainly looking at opportunities with the broadcast networks all of which, in one way or another, had a conflicting relationship with the fast food industry. Even PBS (Public Broadcasting System) has a show - Sesame Street - sponsored by McDonalds. I liked the filmmakers but felt that if I signed on the dotted line there would be pressure to tone things down. I decided I�d rather never make a film based on the book than have a film that was a sell out. It was then that I met with producer Jeremy Thomas - who�d been given the book by Malcolm McLaren - and first discussed the idea of doing a fictional film treatment. Later, I was on a book tour in Austin, Texas when I finally met with Richard and realized we could work together on this concept. A year later when we had secured creative control of the project and Jeremy had funding to make the film outside the Hollywood system we began in earnest.�

Richard, what made you decide to approach the book from a fictional angle?

Linklater: �I was already a big fan of Eric�s work - and he knew that I was no documentarian - so once he�d made the decision to create a narrative piece based on the book I was hooked. I�d tried and failed in the past to get films made about industrial workers and those at the bottom of the food chain. I cared about the issues raised by the book and my early meetings with Eric really opened my eyes. We�d go out to Colorado and meet the ranchers and those who work in the meat packing industry and I could see that there was a great story we could tell in a movie.�

Did you seize on this as an opportunity to make a controversial statement about your country?

Linklater: �I think by choosing to concentrate on the characters, Eric and I wanted to tell a story through them. Of course we realized that the story had wide reaching implications within the socio-political framework of America. We hope that you�ll see the movie and make the connections that in everyday life you�re asked not to see or just ignore. Our aim was to make a movie that shows the global ramifications of a cheap, easily consumed product like a burger.�

Eric, how much were you inspired by Upton Sinclair�s century old book The Jungle, which also dealt with the politics of the meat industry in America?

Schlosser: �Upton Sinclair was hovering over us the whole time. Back in 1906 America had a pro-business Republican President who really loved to read books. Teddy Roosevelt read The Jungle but even though Sinclair was a radical socialist he invited him to the Whitehouse. Then Roosevelt conducted his own investigation into the meat packing industry, believed the truth of the book and had the nerve to take on one of the meanest industries in the United States. Currently there is nobody like that on our political landscape. By writing a book and being involved with this film it hasn�t been my goal to force a change in legislation. Sadly, I think there�s no hope of this but I do hope we can open people�s eyes with some characters you can really care about and rarely see on the big screen, if we can trigger some compassion and encourage debate then that�s great.�

Linklater: �Upton Sinclair once said, �I aim for their hearts and hit their stomachs.� He really believed there would be a reform in the treatment of workers. Though he didn�t achieve this he did manage to force changes that lessened contamination and improved overall standards of hygiene in the industry. I guess it�s easier to make people care about their food more than the welfare of those working to put it on their plate. We worked hard in the film to concentrate on what goes on �behind� the fa�ade of the all-American meal. When you humanize a topic and put it up on screen with characters an audience can root for you�ve got something. In America some of the most demonized people in our culture are the immigrant workers who are treated in a way that�s only a cut above terrorists. Books can change the world and the fact that this film got financing and exists proves that there�s something in the air.�

Richard, fast food targets a market based on low prices, convenience and social hierarchy. What�s the solution to the stranglehold that companies like McDonalds exert?

Linklater: �It�s a tough problem. Fast food companies target kids and the working classes. Rich people eat fast food rarely and only as a kind of �treat�. I think that a large segment of the world�s population has been convinced that it�s all they have time to eat and all they can afford to eat. But if you break down the economics a family could eat healthily for less. And as for the convenience issue, we�re all encouraged to watch four or five hours of TV each night so it�s no surprise that we�re also reminded that our lives are �too busy, to make time to prepare a meal. That�s the weird disconnect - there�s brainwashing going on that we need to learn to ignore but hey, that�s just called �marketing�. Here�s an industry that spends $10bn a year pushing a mindset and selling a �lifestyle� and people are hopefully starting to wake up to this. Fast food marketing is very similar to cigarette advertising but a generation on. I think you have to be really paranoid about the devisive relationship between fast food - and it�s proven links to obesity - and the pharmaceutical companies who get a whole bunch of �customers� lining up for treatment. We�re encouraged to be paranoid about people who want to kill us and threaten our way of life but these people aren�t necessarily terrorists they�re in our schools right now!�

Richard, did you have problems getting permission to use the logos of the major fast food chains in the film?

Linklater: �There�s this grey area called �fair use�. This is one of my least favourite legal hurdles in filmmaking. It just doesn�t make any sense to me that these companies can spend billions of dollars shoving their logos and their image in your face every waking second of your life and then if they�re in the background of your movie when your filming in the street you can�t use them. It comes down to how prominent they are in the shot but we pushed it to the edge and managed to show them all in a mall scene.�

Guys, what�s the response been like to your film from the industry that your film attacks?

Linklater: �Eric�s experienced this a lot more personally than I have.�

Schlosser: �The Wall Street Journal published an article saying that they had seen a memo from McDonalds outlining a plan to discredit me as a person and discredit my work. When I was on my last book tour protesters showed up, schools I was set to visit received letters telling them that I was un-American, a socialist and an improper influence on young people. Groups like Young Americans For Freedom were responsible for this. Interestingly they all had freedom in their name but they didn�t want me to speak! It was clearly being orchestrated through a central governing authority, most likely the Washington based DCI PR group that McDonalds works with. There�s even a website called Best Food Nation that attacks my work. But all this was totally ineffective, the book sales continued to thrive and the reviews were favourable. However, things are unnerving at the present time in the United States. Hewlett Packard have recently been caught spying on journalists by using corporate spies so I guess I�d rather be attacked clumsily through the media and see McDonalds end up with egg on their face.�

Eric Schlosser�s latest book 'Chew On This: Everything You Don�t Want To Know About Fast Food' is out now. Richard Linklater has four scripts in development with a typically diverse range of subject matter including a college comedy, a road trip story and a period jazz piece set in the 1950s. Watch this space�