When his "City of God" was discovered at the Festival de Cannes in 2002, director Fernando Meirelles was inundated with scripts. Thanks to an Oscar push from Miramax, the low-budget movie scored four Oscar noms, including for director, and grossed $24.7 million worldwide. And after initially resisting Hollywood's entreaties, Meirelles -- repped by Endeavor's John Lesher at the recommendation of fellow Brazilian filmmaker Walter Salles -- finally succumbed to one offer, taking on as his first English-language film the $25 million adaptation of John le Carre's African-set thriller "The Constant Gardener." With Focus Features opening "Gardener" in the U.S. on Aug. 31, Meirelles spoke with The Hollywood Reporter deputy film editor Anne Thompson about making the transition from local filmmaker to international director.

The Hollywood Reporter: What finally made you go Hollywood?

Fernando Meirelles: This was a British independent production -- nothing against Hollywood. I've always been very independent, I've always produced my own things; I don't know how to share. A big studio invests a lot of money, and they want control. I'm not prepared for that yet. "The Constant Gardener" was a project with Simon Channing Williams, who produces Mike Leigh's films. Seeing his tiny office in SoHo with just him and two girls, I said, "This is a scale I know how to deal with. I like the script. I want to shoot in Africa."

THR: How did Focus Features get involved?

Meirelles: The financing was already set because Mike Newell was going to do it. In January, they lost 40% of the money from the British Film Council. Simon called Focus, and they came on board. I thought I was trapped: Some Americans are coming to tell me what to do. Focus was easy to work with, so respectful. Now I am talking to them about "Intolerance" (which I was developing prior to "Constant Gardener").

THR: Did Focus make any demands?

Meirelles: They wanted to shoot in South Africa because insurance is very expensive and it was dangerous to shoot in Kenya (where the film is set). In a 20-minute meeting, I explained what I wanted to do: I would shoot some things like a documentary, so I needed to be in a real place. In some scenes, the locals didn't know we were shooting with a small 16 millimeter camera. When Ralph Fiennes is walking in the market in Kibera (in Kenya), the camera followed behind him and no one was seeing the camera; he was really asking people and they were answering. They weren't extras. Working with a small crew, we were able to do this. When you watch it, you feel it's real.

THR: Did you rewrite Jeffrey Caine's script?

Meirelles: We changed it a lot. This was done in the cutting room. We had this thriller, political drama and love story. In the end, we decided that the love story was the strongest thing. I tried to change the order of things in the script, but it was a very complicated story, so we decided that we would shoot a linear script in chronological order. When it was first edited in a linear way, it really didn't work. It was a very boring film. I chose Claire Simpson ("Platoon") as the editor; she's also a writer and knows a lot about structure. I knew I needed someone to help me find a different approach to this story. Claire was brilliant. We had a screening of the first cut in New York, and the film was too long. It was like a documentary, an aggressive political drama. Focus suggested cutting a thriller sequence shot in Winnipeg with Pernilla August as a scientist who gets killed. You don't have to yammer to make a point, that's what I learned.

THR: You are an admirer of the British directors Ken Loach and Mike Leigh?

Meirelles: What I like is the way that they develop the script and work with actors, allowing the actor to bring his own lines. But the ways they shoot and my style are very different. I'm more intense and complicated, they're more simple.

THR: Where did your intense, percussive shooting style come from?

Meirelles: I learned to shoot doing commercials. We started out doing experimental videos. For 10 years, we did different comedy shows on TV -- comedy with journalism -- we pretended to be doing docs or news of the week. I was a cameraman, director and host. It was fake journalism, like Ali G. After that, we were invited to do commercials with the characters we had in our shows. We were getting married (and) having kids who wanted to eat. Then, for 10 years we were only doing commercials. I've done 800-900 commercials, five to six a month. After 10 years, I was bored. Everything was going well. We had the biggest commercial company in Brazil. I needed to move on. We did "The Maids," our first small, low-budget film, to learn about postproduction. We released it the same week we started to shoot "City of God." Then my life really changed.

THR: Did you shoot "City of God" and "The Constant Gardener" in the same way?

Meirelles: It was just a matter of locations. We shot them the same way, mixing 35 and 16, mixing some classic sequences with some more urgent. What we learned on "City of God" was to shoot freestyle. Instead of setting up the camera and the lights and bringing the actors in so that they perform for the camera for each angle, we create a general flat light and bring in the actors who perform. I don't give them marks or ask them to move. The camera is there like a documentary trying to get what is happening. I don't interfere. So I never break the scene, I always run from the top to the end, and I ask the actors to not be aware of the camera. They never know when we're doing a close-up. The camera goes to a wide shot and a close-up all in the same shot. They got used to it after a while.

THR: You must place a lot of trust in your Oscar-nominated cameraman, Cesar Charlone.

Meirelles: The cameraman is fundamental, he's a partner with whom I've been working for almost 20 years. He just finished his first film, shot in Uruguay, "The Pope's Toilet," a comedy. He used to direct commercials, now this is his first feature. We're editing that now. I let him be very free to move the camera.

THR: Did the experience of releasing "City of God" teach you anything about releasing films in the U.S.?

Meirelles: (Miramax Films') Harvey Weinstein liked "City of God" from the beginning. He didn't want to change anything. When the film's release was done, he called me to say, "This film deserves more than it got, and we're going to spend money and do a campaign, and we're gonna get nominations." From the business side, it was a bad experience, but I would do it again. I don't think I signed a good contract. I didn't really believe in the film. It was a low-budget Brazilian film in Portuguese -- what can a film like this do? Harvey liked the film more than I did. They paid exactly what was on the contract.

THR: Where are you with "Intolerance," the film you have been developing with "City of God" screenwriter Braulio Mantovani?

Meirelles: We were working on it in Kenya, now I'm back to the script. Hopefully, I'll do it next year. The difficulty is putting the script together: It's six stories from different countries in six languages: Portuguese, English, Chinese, Tagalog, Swahili and Arabic. We went to each country to see places and rewrite, checking to see if our story was true. "Intolerance" is about different perspectives on life. It's about happiness -- what do we need to be happy? It's more philosophical. We Westerners assume that this is the way, all the countries have to achieve what we do. We had some offers to finance the development, but I decided to do it myself. I have no commitment with anybody; I haven't shown the script to anybody. I have no dates to meet, just when I am 100% sure that the script is ready to go. Otherwise, you create expectation, you're trapped and have to deliver.

THR: Will you ever want to tackle a big-budget movie?

Meirelles: I'm going to do some big film at some point but not now. My ideal career would be to do what Pedro Almodovar does (in Spain). I'd like to make Brazilian films for international audiences that are not big-budget. This would be the best.