J.J. Abrams Interview: "I wanted to be there and do anything. Just being there."

"I wanted to be there and do anything. Just being there."

Filming Mission: Impossible III provided first time film director J.J. Abrams with the ultimate creative challenge of his remarkable career. And he loved every minute of it.

When you meet Abrams - and read up on his impressive CV - it's easy to see why Tom Cruise, who stars as secret agent Ethan Hunt and produces the film, choose J.J. to take charge of such a huge blockbuster - even though it was the first time that the creator of smash hit shows Alias and Lost had directed a feature.

Abrams is brimming with enthusiasm, clearly full of ideas and creativity and a bundle of endless energy, according to his star.

“J.J. is an amazing person,” says Cruise. “And he is a sensational director. Utterly sensational. When I'm working with someone I need that artistic bounce, the way you play ideas off each other. I look for that bounce, that energy, that idea. And it happened very quickly with J.J., we were just right on the same page the whole time.”

You would imagine that taking charge of a blockbuster with a shooting schedule of 100 days which included locations in America, China, Italy and Germany, a crew of hundreds, action sequences which would faze a seasoned veteran with a cast which is headed by the biggest film star in the world and also features Oscar winner Philip Seymour Hoffman and rising talent Michelle Monaghan, might at least cause you the odd sleepless night with a tiny bit of anxiety.

And you would be right, but it wasn't acting as ringmaster to this huge creative circus that kept Abrams awake at night.

“You know the stuff that I thought would be intimidating never was for some reason,” says J.J. “And I think the reason is that the crew was so terrific - they were so friendly and facilitating and collaborative and good natured. So it never felt like I was dealing with the pressures of budget or time. We were always pretty good on time, if we ever went over or lost a day, I always made sure that we made it up. Because I didn't want to start to feel like the show was getting out of control.”

“But in terms of making sure that the movie was good and the story was working, that was really the only thing that I was constantly haunted by and intimidated by - how to make it worth anyone's time.

“So in that regard every day, to this day, I was constantly beating myself up to make that thing work as well as it could and be as exciting and suspenseful and unexpected as it could be. And that's something that was very familiar to me in terms of anything I've done before.”

Jeffrey Abrams, 39, grew up in Hollywood, the son of a successful television producer, Gerald W. Abrams. He remembers visiting the studio lots with his father and from a very young age, knew that he wanted to be part of it all.

“I would go and I would be so absolutely desperate to be on the floor and be working, doing something, it was like a physical pain, I so wanted to do it,” he recalls.

“And I didn't care what. I wanted to be there and do anything. Just being there. And when my father had an office at Paramount, which he did for a number of years, when I would go to work with him I got to know some of the guards there and they would let me go in and watch the rehearsals of these sitcoms - Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley, Mork and Mindy. I would soak it all up and that's how it started.”

Abrams wrote numerous movies, including Armageddon, Regarding Henry, Forever Young and Taking Care of Business, before creating the WB drama Felicity. He then co-created, wrote and directed several episodes of the acclaimed spy series Alias, which starred Jennifer Garner, and created and wrote the television phenomenon of recent years, Lost.

Abrams and his wife Katie McGrath have three children - Henry, 7, Gracie, 6 and baby August who was born in January this year.