Charlie went to America when he was 19, was making his own movies at the age of 25, and by the time he was 30 was a millionaire and probably the most famous man in the world.

After profiling the great political leaders Gandhi in the film of the same name and Steve Biko in Cry Freedom, Sir Richard Attenborough has spent years planning and almost as long filming the life of an individual who in his own way had a huge influence upon the world - Charlie Chaplin, with Robert Downey Jr. in the title role. Shooting in London recently took place, and so a conference was called for the world's press. Naturally Academy were there in attendance.

Sir Richard begins by talking about the factual basis to the film and it would seem churlish to interrupt his flow, so we won't. So here for your enjoyment is what Sir Richard Attenborough and Robert Downey Jr. had to say about Charlie.

"If you're going to make any biography of any real significance at all, you have got to have a definitive document obviously, and David's book has proven to be that. In fact it was David's book that persuaded us that a major film biography of Charlie could be made, and the family were delighted indeed that he was able to absolve himself from his duties at The Times to come and join us on the picture. He was involved in most of the pre-production, and in all the shooting, every single day. In fact, the unit call him the keeper of the truth.

"John Thaw and Anthony Hopkins have also just joined the cast, and I would also like to say that the multi Oscared John Barry is to write the music. But I suppose that apart from the original material and the script, the most important thing one has to do in a film such as this is the casting of the leading part."

An important point indeed, so what was it that made him choose a relatively unkown American actor, Robert Downey Jr., to play one of Britain's most famous sons?

"There are obviously, as far as Charlie is concerned a number of prerequisites that are absolute essentials. In the first place, Charlie went to America when he was 19, was making his own movies at the age of 25, and by the time he was 30 was a millionaire and probably the most famous man in the world. You have to have somebody who can play those ages. Because although the picture begins at the of age of five, the leading actor has to begin at the age of 18 or 19, and has to go to the age of 83, so that you start with the concern that you've got to have an actor who can cover those years, obviously with the help of very sophisticated make-up that now exists. You also have the problem of height. Charlie was not very tall, and whereas you can turn Alan Ladd into Duke Wayne, you can't turn Duke Wayne into Alan Ladd, and so we had to have an actor who was somewhere around five foot six and a half, five seven something like that. The other question that arises is that you've got to have someone who looks like Charlie. Now making Charlie look like The Tramp was relatively easy, but making somebody look like Charlie as he was off the screen is very much more difficult. So you've got to achieve that, you've also got to have somebody who's immensely agile. Nijinsky described Charlie Chaplin as 'the greatest ballet dancer who was never a ballet dancer', and that ability of dance and of mimicry is also a prerequisite."

"Charlie was also very good looking, he was a major romantic figure in Hollywood. And in Hollywood, of course, due partly to his good looks and skill and everything else, he was immensely influential. And as you will all know with DW Griffith, with Doug Fairbanks and with Mary Pickford, founded United Artists when they were all around the age of forty."

"You also of course have somebody who is a sensational actor and I would refer everybody merely to the great Olivier who said that he believed that Chaplin was the greatest actor of all time. Now if you put all those things together, and you also need a tremendous charisma, and an immense acting ability you are constrained obviously. I considered over the three years or so, every major English and American actor that could possibly play the part. We had interviews and long sessions with between twenty five and thirty. We tested seven. Full tests. Full make-up tests, full acting tests and everything else. There was in my opinion no doubt whatsoever that at the end of the day, one person who was head and shoulders above everybody else, not merely in fulfilling the requirements, but in talent, because almost any any actor can pick up a cane, put a black moustache on and stick his feet out. But to convey a genius of the complexity of Chaplin is a very great task. And the one thing I can say categorically is that I have never regretted by one iota the choice. In fact, Robert Downey Jr. already has surpassed everything that we ever dreamt of. He is a brilliant, brilliant young actor with a career ahead of him which is limitless in my opinion."

Naturally, Downey Jr. had to do a great deal of research to play Chaplin. "I started off basically watching a lot of the films and then read everything to some of the most obscure material you could find," he remarks. "I think for me that the most difficult thing has been dealing with what I feel the responsibility is. I think when you have someone who was an entertainer, but also so much a social concave... I just hope that Charlie would feel that I've done some service to the part, and that's something I can only hope for."

"He spent months before we started working, and every single day follows that through in relation to his accent and his cockney accent," defends Sir Richard. "Charlie had a broad, broad, broad cockney accent and maintained it for really quite a long time in his life and only later refined it. And that accent of course is another of the prerequisites, or rather the capability of the actor, to be able to portray that character with that accent. Robert's cockney accent is impeccable in the movie. And impeccable because he is an extraordinary mimic and secondly because he has worked as hard as any actor that I have ever dealt with in those terms."

And Downey Jr. acknowledges that point. "I want to add that my toughest audience will obviously be England, so I hope that you guys think that it's legit, and that you appreciate it."

When filming in America, the production faced certain logistical difficulties. "I know it sounds ridiculous, but we've had to virtually rebuild Hollywood," says Sir Richard. "Because people who know Los Angeles, there's one of these huge great funfairs, it's called La Brere and Charlie built his studios on La Brere. Which is now one of these high placed skyscrapers and so on. When Charlie built it, it was in the middle of an orange grove, not a building on the entire street. It's now A&M studios. And that exists there in Hollywood. We had to go sixty miles outside Hollywood and build Charlie's studio and Mack Sennet's studio as I was saying in a valley surrounded by orange trees."

The time it's taken Sir Richard to get the film made, has been almost as long as the time it's taken Hollywood to develop. What were the delays? "I have to admit that the answer is a little complicated in that I had a contractual commitment with Universal, then Universal for various reasons pulled out of the picture. And we went to Carolco and I don't think Carolco was able to raise funds in the UK," he reveals.

"The picture folded an a Friday afternoon, which I shall never forget with Universal. And I had known far a number of years that Mario Kassar had always been an enormous fan of the idea of a picture about Charlie. And was a great authority on him. And so when it fell, my agent in Los Angeles said the person to talk to at once was Mario Kassar. On the Sunday we spent the morning with Mario, and Mario said I'll make it. So then we had to await rescheduling, rebudgeting with all the delays and so on."

Why did Universal pull out? "I wish I could answer that question. I really do not know. Genuinely. I don't know whether it was the script. I don't know whether it was the budget. I really have no idea. Other than I can say they put the picture 'in turnaround' quite suddenly. Maybe it had to do with Havana. I don't know."

A mystery indeed. Almost as big a one as to why a film made by one of the world's leading film-makers, who is British, should not be able to attract British funding.

"It is financed, ironically, by France, Japan, Italy and America, with not a pound sterling in the capital for the movie. Which is very sad, because of Downey Jr. with Hugh Downer course if it is successful, as with Gandhi, all the money goes abroad which is very sad for the industry. But the important thing I think is to demonstrate that we are capable still in this country, even under difficult circumstances, of making movies of a particular scale, which are not movies simply made for television, but are movies which are made essentially for the cinema. And I hope that in the use of all the technicians, and all the people we had from this country, all the post production for instance; seven or eight months of post-production will all take place in this country. I hope it will demonstrate to those who are likely to change the law in some way, maybe on March 8th we hope, that some kind of fiscal incentive, not cash handouts, but some sort of fiscal incentive it might persuade them that it is possible, and there is the talent here still to make major movies."

The money barrier being overcome, the only other major objection could come from Chaplin's family. "A marvellous thing happened when I first wrote to Oona (Charlie's fourth wife). Charlie had died, and I wrote to Oona some three and a half years ago to ask for her agreement to make this movie. Because, obviously we needed the rights to Charlie's autobiography, we needed the rights to David's (Robinson) book. And her response, because I perhaps suppose because I knew them both a little. I was not in any sense a friend. I was an acquaintance, but I knew the children, some of the children, and the response was immediate. Not only was it immediate but it was unqualified and Oona said 'You may make the film, as you wish to make it. You may have all the documents. You may have all the archives. You may have anything that any of the family can give you. We only have one condition. We don't wish to have any approvals whatsoever. Either on the script, or the casting, or anything to do with the movie. That is your decision.'"

"It is not a sycophantic piece of work. Nothing bas been hidden from us. We show his predilection for girls in their teens. We show his absolutely blinkered life in terms of his work which took precedence over everything. We show his ruthlessness. We show all the tough sides of this man. That it emanates in some measure from this incredible life at the beginning. Where at the age of five and six he lived for a year in the work-house. At the age of twelve he had to commit his mother to an asylum, because his half-brother was away in the Navy. So all those influences in his life obviously had tremendous impact later on. But it is not, I promise you, a whitewash in any sense whatsoever."

Charlie, produced and directed by Sir Richard Attenborough and starring Robert Downey Jr., is currently in post-production and will be released in November or December of this year by Guild Film.