Mr. Burmeister (Michael Douglas) instructs Randy
(Matt Dillon) in the finer points of bingo.

“It’s a very clever and intriguing script and I think it has some movie magic in its structure, in the sense that there are different episodes told by different people,” says Zwart in an English that is lightly inflected rather than accented. “Also, it’s a very sexy script, it has relatable characters and it has a good heart. It just shows how narrow-minded and short-sighted men can be. And that women always have a second agenda.”

Michael Douglas - whom Zwart refers to politely as ‘Mr Douglas’ throughout our conversation - also turned out to have a second agenda, which is why he asked Zwart to step into his office.

Initially, says the director, ‘Mr Douglas’ had kept his distance from One Night at McCool’s. “I think he didn’t want his commitment as an actor to be the factor that made this thing fly,” says Zwart, “and he didn’t want to be the one that made other actors commit to the project. Plus he’d just come off a picture and he wasn’t sure if he wanted to do it. But then, one day, he called me into the office and he said,” - Zwart’s voice drops a register into a passable imitation of Mr Douglas - “‘Well, I’ve been thinking. And, if you have nothing against it, I’d like to play the part of Burmeister!’”

Burmeister is the guy who bookends the various stories in One Night at McCool’s. A shadowy figure who may or may not be a professional hitman, he hears the version of events narrated by Randy (Dillon). He does so in a bingo parlour (the script set the scene in a diner, but Zwart thought a bingo parlour would be funnier). In the process, he loses the game and Randy wins, which makes Mr Burmeister very upset.

In the end, though, Mr Burmeister goes off with Jewel, promising her the pale blue living room with plush carpeting, white couch and little fountain in the corner which represents the pinnacle of her dreams. Read the script imagining Douglas as Mr Burmeister and it takes on a whole new aura. How could Zwart say no? He didn’t, of course. But what he did do was deck Douglas out in a remarkable Elvis hair-do.

John Goodman as Officer Dehling.

But then Zwart is an aficionado of such cultural oddities. He is a Norwegian who was born in Holland. Trained in Holland, too: he spent four years at the Netherlands Film Academy, then went back to Norway and started making commercials. Then his agent - who, Zwart’s being a pan-European career, is based in Paris - got him some gigs doing commercials in London. He settled there for the next four years, winning several major awards in the process. About 18 months ago, however, Zwart moved to Los Angeles (from where he still does British commercials) and began looking for a feature. Eventually, along came One Night at McCool’s.

Zwart met with Segan and Douglas at Furthur Films - they’d already seen his showreel - and scored every bit as high as the screenplay.

“I wasn’t very interested in hiring a commercials director,” admits Segan. “I always worry about the longer narrative sense. But what I loved about Harald’s commercials - apart from the humour - was that they were very, very low-tech: they weren’t big and trashy. And each one really told this little story.

“We met with him and he just seemed to understand the movie. He grew up on American movies and has a great love for American culture, so he brought his sense of humour to a script that was already very funny, but he could see it in a little more of a warped fashion. He just understood who all these people were, which really surprised me. And he made them all very loveable.”