While Lana and Andy Wachowski handled the Adam Ewing story, and, understandably given their experience with The Matrix and Speed Racer, the two sci-fi sections, Tom Tykwer directed the three vignettes stretching from 1936 to the present day. The faultlines between the two crews were non-existent, explains D'Arcy. "Normally directors have a middling-to-pretty-strong ego - you have to to be a director - but I've worked with single directors who were more conflicted than these three." Surely there was some competitiveness between the two units? "Well, Hugh Grant tried to stir it up," laughs D'Arcy. "He'd turn up on set and say, 'Well, on the other set, they're doing this...', but it didn't work."