Stephen Daldry has only made two feature films, but he’s overseen four Oscar-nominated performances, and netted himself two Best Director Academy Award nominations to boot. His third movie, The Reader, seems to stand a solid chance of continuing those trends. Based on Bernhard Schlink’s acclaimed novel, the film centers on a 15-year-old, Michael Berg (David Kross), who in post-World War II Germany enters into a sexual relationship with a woman twice his age, Hanna Schmitz (Kate Winslet), reading her plays and literature before their steamy afternoon clinches. Their relationship dissipates, but years later, as a law student, Michael re-encounters his former lover as a defendant in a war crimes trial. Just in advance of his buzz-heavy film’s release, I spoke with Daldry about back-loading The Reader‘s intimate scenes, and the clashes between Harvey Weinstein and producer Scott Rudin that eventually led to the latter taking his name off the project. For the full Q&A chat, from New York Magazine‘s Vulture, click here.