Filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn is a soft-spoken Dane who volunteers the information that he never touches alcohol or drugs and leads "a quiet, boring life."

A family man with two daughters, Refn, 39, collects toys, specifically Asian robot toys, and in the course of this interview, he enthuses about the creative possibilities of Lego, his favourite toy.

Refn also makes some of the most wildly violent films imaginable: the Pusher trilogy, which concerned the criminal underground of Copenhagen and now, Bronson, a film about Britain's most dangerous inmate.

Charles Bronson, who was born Michael Peterson, is a thief whose violent bent in prison has turned a seven-year sentence into 34 years behind bars. Bronson's destruction of people and property has led him through dozens of different prisons and several psychiatric hospitals. He now lives in a specially constructed cage inside a prison.

Bronson is brought to life by Tom Hardy, who is almost unrecognizable here. Over the phone from Copenhagen, Refn says, "Tom Hardy beefed up a lot. He looks like Freddie Mercury from Queen, so there was quite a physical transformation. I had this idea of him being nude as much as possible, because it made him primal."

One part of Bronson's story that interests Refn is the prisoner's thirst for fame.

"One of the elements was the whole celebrity obsession we have, and the flip side of it. Bronson achieved his fame, but the flip side was, he's going to be in a cage. It's symbolic of what celebrity is really all about. And it's about an artist finding his stage. And finding that art is an act of violence. Art is there to violate you, that is its function. Not in a negative way," he adds. "Violation from art makes you think. That's its main purpose."

Refn, who is the son of filmmaker Anders Refn, uses a lot of classical music in the film, "to underscore Bronson's view of life, that his life is an opera, and very flamboyant."

He continues, "Bronson is a very feminine movie, even though it's about masculinity, male violence, male brutality. It's a feminine movie, and the operatic feel would enhance that aspect."

Refn says he sort of fell into his work. "I just started making films. I was like Charlie Bronson. I didn't have a lot of options. I'm dyslexic, so I couldn't write. So my writing's very primitive. So I couldn't be a novelist. I'm colour blind, so I couldn't really paint. I'm not good with clay. So I didn't have a lot of options."

We'll assume he's only half-kidding.

And says Refn, "Bronson is probably the closest thing I'll ever come to a biography of my own life. It's a strange way of using somebody else's transformation to do a movie about your own life, but, starting out, when I was younger, I was being very nihilistic, being self-destructive with everything I did. Art had to be destroying everything." He laughs. "I learned the hard way that art doesn't have to destroy. It can enlighten. And things like that. A lot of the dialogue in the movie, the voice-over, became my own, my background."

Meanwhile, the real-life Bronson is not allowed to see the movie. Refn says that because the film has been so successful, Bronson has had all his privileges taken away from him. "In England, it's very much a class society, and I think they want to punish him for who he is and what he represents," says Refn, although he adds that Bronson's mother has seen the movie and liked it a lot.

He adds, "My mother saw it, and she liked it a lot, too."

More Artists