When was a decision reached to actually start again from scratch - to go back to the beginning?

Christopher Nolan: I think, for the studio, they'd been thinking about it for sometime, thinking about ways to reintroduce the character into cinemas and� the point at which I got interested in becoming involved, they didn't seem to have a specific idea of how to do that. They were looking for a fresh approach and� it seemed to me that to tell the origin of the story would be pretty fascinating because it's a story that, that's never been told onscreen and hasn't really even definitively been addressed in any of the comics. It's a story that's always been treated in kind of montage and flash back in the past. We wanted to flesh that out and tell the whole story.

A lot's been made of how tough it is to act in a batsuit. But just how difficult is it to move and act in that suit?

Christian Bale: I think I probably had the easiest time of any actor, probably apart from Adam West � that looked like a pretty flimsy outfit he had there. Linda Hemmings and the other designers came up with the lightest weight batsuit so far and with the most mobility as well. Our Batman was actually able to turn his head which has never been done before.

This is the first time that Batman hasn't really been a guest star in his own movie. The villains have always been more charismatic than Batman. That presumably was the attraction to both of you in doing this?

Christopher Nolan: For me, Batman is the character I'm most interested in the film and I felt that it would be perfectly possible to have interesting and colourful villains who wouldn't overshadow the focus of the film. It wouldn't get in the way of the focus of the film and overshadow Bruce Wayne and Batman himself and I think in my mind I was thinking somewhat of the best of the Bond films where there have been some wonderful villains, criminal masterminds, but they've never got in the way of the focus of the story and I felt we could do something similar here.

Christian Bale: Yeah, I felt similarly that I'd never actually realised, from seeing the other movies, just how interesting Batman was because I was so fascinated with the villains that, in many ways, it felt like treading water when Batman arrived. And it wasn't until reading the graphic novels and the first one I read of that, because I'm not a comic book fan, was in 2000 and that was when I was really surprised at just how interesting the character Batman could be and was not sure why that had never been seen in a feature film.

How hard was it to get back to physical fitness again after the extreme weight loss that you endured for The Machinist?

Christian Bale: It was a great deal of weight that I did have to put on, but it was something necessary for the character. He has no superpowers whatsoever so you have to really believe that he's capable of it.

How easy did �buttler-ing' come to you and did you base the character on anybody you'd known and depended on in your own past.

Michael Caine: My mother used to be a cook during the war when we were evacuated in rich houses and so there were many butlers that we worked with, I was only a little boy, but they were always rather scary figures � the two main things about Alfred is that he's tough and loyal, so in my own mind � the voice is of my first sergeant in the army. I made him an infantry soldier who by nature are tough and loyal.

Did you have any preconceptions about what a comic book movie would be?

Christian Bale: I think that we'd seen what a comic book movie could be with the last two Batman movies, and very definitely we were trying to create something completely different and I like to think of this as being a graphic novel based movie, much more than a comic book. I think Chris took it beyond the realm of the graphic novels so it's able to be a finely made movie just in itself, quite apart from having to be any fan of comic books whatsoever.

Morgan Freeman: I'd noticed that the comic book recreations have been rather different. When Warren Beatty did Dick Tracy, it was very graphic novel type, colourful with sort of outlandish make-up. The characters, Flattop, Pruneface, all those guys looked like themselves in there. Warren Beatty didn't move his face to talk, like Dick Tracy. Then Spiderman, of course, is pure comic book. So it's hard to have a preconceived notion about what the movie would look like, because you haven't seen them.

There are so many great characters of the film played by so many great actors (Sir Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman and Gary Oldman). How is it as a Director having to deal with all of those different personalities?

Christopher Nolan: Part of being a Director is trying to figure out what an actor requires from you. As far as this film goes, it was a very large film with a lot of things going on and the actors would do a few days here and there which was quite nice and refreshing. Michael would turn up and raise everyone's spirits a little bit and then Morgan would come and it sort of keeps everybody going to have a lot of different personalities coming and going � and the thing I've always noticed from great actors is how naturally and easily they accommodate one another's needs. Even though their performing styles and the way you would expect them to approach a scene might be very different, they seem effortlessly to be able to mesh with the other performers and I think that's part of their talent. So, I found it very helpful to have so many great creative allies on the set because the other thing a great actor will do is they have an entire life for their character off-screen. They've worked out their character's place in the world of the story as well and they become very useful for me and make my job a lot easier.

Why was the decision made to shoot it in Britain as opposed to shooting it in the States or Canada?

Christopher Nolan: I'd always talked to the studio about achieving a degree of texture and reality to the film and doing a certain amount of location shooting in an American city and then studio work elsewhere and the model I'd been looking at was the 1978 Superman that Richard Donner made and they did a certain amount of location shooting in New York for that film but everything else was done over here at Pinewood Studios. So, we created a model of the idea of shooting at Shepperton Studios and certain London locations and then going to an American city which turned out to be Chicago. I think Hollywood films were doing some really marvellous escapist entertainment on a grand scale [in the 70�s] and all of those films were done over here. Raiders of the Lost Ark, the first Star Wars, Superman. So, I think for me it was a fairly natural thing to just look at that model of doing things.

Batman, I suppose, is the ultimate comic� the ultimate big hero. Who were/are the heroes in your lives - fact or fiction?

Michael Caine: When I was six my father was a soldier and went away to war so he was my big hero. I thought he was the greatest thing and because in the war there was no paper so we never had comics and so we never knew any of these until they came onto television much later.

Katie Holmes: I would say that my parents are real heroes.

Morgan Freeman: My step dad.

Batman channels some of the anger that he feels for what happened to him as a child. You had a fairly nomadic life as a child. Did that help drive your anger here?

Christian Bale: I think having a nomadic childhood certainly helps with doing this job, living in a different place for every single job and I liked that and I kind of need that. Because that is normalcy for me. But as for kind of any correlation between anger again as a child, I don't think there's a person alive that doesn't have some kind of anger stemming from their childhood.

You've stated on several occasions and here as well that you wanted to ground this film in a more realistic look. Now, we're talking about a guy who disguises as a bat to fight terrorism. The main part of the story isn't very realistic. Did you feel you have to make the film to give it a realistic look whereas the story is just a comic book?

Christopher Nolan: To say the story is just a comic book is to sort of miss the whole point really. But, excepting that point, and say the story is just a comic book, when you talk about realism in films, you're talking about issues of texture and look as much as anything more substantial. For me, the idea of grounding the film on reality is about making the audience believe in the events of the story more and I think that the more people are invested in the story, both in terms of character and in terms of the actual events and the physicality of what's going on, if those things can be believed in, I think the narrative effects of the story are amplified.

Why did you choose Mr Bale? What makes him different than the other actors?

Christopher Nolan: In trying to create a realistic version of the story you need an actor like Christian who has sufficient intensity and focus in his eyes to make you believe in the idea that somebody without superpowers could through sheer force of will change himself into a superhero, and I think Christian has the ability to project that kind of intensity.

How was it to act with such great actors like Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman?

Christian Bale: It was fantastic getting to work with Michael and Morgan and Gary and with everybody involved in this movie, and Liam. And it was a wonderful thing to see that this calibre of actor was interested in the movie and showed a great recognition that here we had a good filmmaker who they knew they could trust and who was going to be making an original and smart movie, and also that this was a great story, which I think is really essential to remember here, because that gets forgotten so much in large movies with lots of special effects and explosions, that often storylines go out of the window and I think, with Chris that could never happen at all.

Katie Holmes: For me it was just such a privilege to be a part of this cast and it was such a learning experience and it's so easy when you're working with just such wonderful actors, I learned so much and Michael made me laugh all day and it was just a privilege.

Will you be there for the sequel and where do you see the character progressing beyond the parameters of this film?

Christian Bale: I'm signed up for the next one. Whether anybody else is going to be back for it is a different matter and that's what I keep asking them but it is certainly something that I'm more than happy to be back for if people embrace this movie and enjoy the style, the vein in which Chris has made it, if they enjoy my portrayal of Batman, then very much I'd like to reprise the character and I think it's kind of limitless with this superhero, unlike others, because he is so contradictory, he is so complex, he has so many demons and issues.

Michael Caine: Yeah, I would. Yesterday a guy told me that in one of the comics Bruce Wayne dresses up Alfred as Batman to act as a decoy � and I think Alfred dressed as Batman will be one of the funniest things in Batman. Will you bear that in mind, Christopher, if you write the script?

Christopher Nolan: Absolutely.

Michael Caine: I just wanted to get that in.

Your character, Rachel, helps Bruce Wayne find his social consciences, moral conscience. Were there any aspects of your upbringing or childhood that you found helpful to draw on to give conviction to this role?

Katie Holmes: It was really exciting and fun to play an Assistant DA. I'm the daughter of an attorney and the sister of one. So, that aspect was just kind of fun and whenever you're creating a character subconsciously there are things that you grew up with or parts of your personality that you put into it.

You mentioned that the Donner version of Superman is a model in terms of your shooting plan. Is that also a model in terms of the casting because like that film you've got great actors all the way down to the smallest part.

Christopher Nolan: Yeah, very much. I actually spoke specifically to the studio about coming up with what we talked about as an epic cast, because we wanted the film to have an epic treatment for Batman and I think other than big sets and big explosions and all that kind of stuff, what really makes a film have that marvellous scale is having a wonderful cast of the finest actors and recognisable faces playing even some of the smallest roles so that there's a life off screen for all of these characters and there's a scope to the story and in that film they had Marlon Brando and Gene Hackman, they had Glenn Ford and it was an extraordinary ensemble and that was very much what we were aspiring to.

This installation of the Batman franchise represents a complete departure from your previous films, Following and Memento . You bring the gritty realism of your styles in this film as well. What comes next?

Christopher Nolan: I really haven't been able to focus on what I'll be doing next yet because the release of this film is very overwhelming. It a much larger film than I've ever done before. So, this is a very new process to me. I think in the future I'll be interested in doing all sorts of films. I've enjoyed making this film and a film on this scale. So, I would absolutely be open to it again but at the same time I have various projects with different sizes of story so I hope to do a variety of things in the future.

How did you do the Batman voice? Did you just lower your voice or did you get technical help, like Darth Vader?

Christian Bale: When we were filming it was just my voice and we had a gentleman there who was kind of helping me out so that I could speak the next day.

Christopher Nolan: The voice Christian did in production was very powerful and we found when any attempt was made to over manipulate that it becomes very obvious and doesn't really work. We did a certain amount of re-recording of dialogue and tried that, but the truth is what I found is that there is a degree of performance that just being in the suit and adopting the character onset, lends the voice that's incredibly impressive. So we wound up using that very much as the basis of it.

Did you ever assume a different identity in order to achieve something like Batman and do you have special fears or phobias � bats, for example?

Christian Bale: I'm an actor, I do that every day of my life, just to get through the day I think. I don't have any specific phobias like Batman had. I was a bit of an odd kid actually. I liked scary movies� certainly my favourite kinds of movies and I enjoyed going walking in the woods and at night time and walking down dark alleyways and things, just to purposely get the hair on the back of my neck standing up and trying not to run or anything. So I always kind of enjoyed toying with my own fears.

Katie Holmes: We are actors so we do assume the different identities all the time. And fears growing up� now I don't really have any phobias right now but� I've gone through the whole fear of turtles, fear of fire, fear of� you name it.

You have been around quite a long time. How does it feel to be wanted all the time in the films?

Michael Caine: For me, it's great because I spent 30 years of my life in film, not being wanted at all. So I'm just about over double now. I'm ahead. So I like it. I love being wanted for films but I haven't worked since November so I'm getting a bit scared now.

Morgan Freeman: I don't have work all the time. It just looks that way. Michael is right. It's great to be wanted in a film. I'd spent quite a few years not being wanted, so this is better.

In the last sequence of the film there's a hint that there'll be a next film with the Joker. Does that mean that you are intending to make a remake of the film that was done 15 years ago with Jack Nicholson? It doesn't feel logical as it's so different in tone, so over the top.

Christopher Nolan: The ending of the film is intended to end this film and the appearance of that device is very much intended as a dramatic effect for Batman Begins and for the end of it. As far as where sequels might go from here, I think that the tone of the film is very different to previous films and so it doesn't stand as either a sequel or a prequel to any of the films that have come before. I think it is a separate thing. What that means to me is that as far as what might be addressed in future films, if they were to be made is, just as the Batmobile, the Batcave, Batman himself, as these things have all been reinterpreted in a fresh way, that applies to the Joker, any other villains, any other things really, because this film really is a different tone to the previous films and so those elements can be reinterpreted.