(Cover) - EN Showbiz - Stephen Frears tries to make his films different so they dont bore the backside off everybody.

The British director has tackled various subjects throughout his long Hollywood career, making a screen adaptation of a French novel with the movie Dangerous Liaisons, and exploring the events following the death of Britains Princess Diana in The Queen.

Stephens latest film Tamara Drewe is about a journalist who returns to her home town in the countryside and falls in love with a rock star. The film differs from a great deal of British cinema because it deals with issues affecting the middle classes in the countryside, as opposed to focusing on the working classes living in the city.

Stephen deliberately choose to explore this group because he thought people would find it more interesting, and says he sought inspiration from French filmmakers such as the iconic French director Claude Chabrol, who died yesterday.

"The British don't make films about the middle classes. I was conscious that Chabrol, and the French, make films about the middle classes, and that French directors like Pagnol and Renoir made films about the countryside. I like all of that, for silly reasons, because nobody else does it. So you're immediately doing what nobody else does.

That also enables you to get out of bed, and it just doesn't bore the backside off everybody," he laughed in an interview with the Irish website movies.ie.

Tamara Drewe stars British actress Gemma Arterton in the title role, and Stephen hadnt watched any of the 24-year-olds other films before casting her. Gemma has been in top Hollywood movies such as Prince of Persia and the James Bond film Quantum of Solace, but Stephen knew of her simply because he had caught a glimpse of her in a British television series Tess of the DUrbervilles.

"The truth is, to this day, that I've never seen Gemma in anything, I think I might have seen a few minutes of Tess and my wife said she was very, very good," he revealed. (C) Cover Media