Summer, 1981, an 11 year-old boy bounces out of Newcastle Odeon.
Every time he blinks, images flare against his eyelids: a rolling rock, a bullwhip, a Nazi's melted face. Steven Spielberg has just changed his life.
At home, on TV, a "making of documentary confirms it: somebody got paid to make Raiders Of The Lost Ark. Little Neil knows what he wants to do with his life – and what he really wants to do is direct.
Son enough, he's on set (this back garden), where he and best mate Mike Johnson recreate scenes from Raiders with a cine camera. Afterwards, they clutch magnifying glasses and squint at the celluloid, scratching fighting bolt "special effects" onto the negative.
They invite their families to a "premiere", Neil's parents are just pleased he's not out vandalizing bus stops. He's a nice boy – he's making movies, having fun. Aw, bless...

Winter, 2009. A 38-year-old man bounces through a crisp Scottish forest and extends his hand. "You're arrived just in time for the decapitation!" says Neil Marshall, smiling. It's cold – but not half as cold it's going to get; the sun still shines lazily through the trees and bounces off the river that runs through the Rothiemurchus Estate, here in the Highlands.
A couple of horses are taking an involuntary paddle. A moulded dummy of a legionary is on its knees in the drink, with the visual effects crew prepping for gore. It's real, living and breathing counterpart, a stunt man, is standing on the bank, decked out in the uniform of the Rome's legendary Ninth Legion, drinking tea and Scottish a custard cream.
A few yards away, Olga Kurilenko sits on a green canvas chair, having her make-up done; except the slap isn’t the latest from L'Oreal, it's woad war paint as the transforms from Bond beauty to fierce Pict warrior, Etain. Somehow, this is quite convincing. Marshall wanders over.
"You actually have to hack off the head," he tells his stars. "Just keep on hacking until it comes off." She nods. A few minutes later she’s being carried to a shingle bank in the middle of the water, where her white horse stands idle. "See, this is what you've come for", says Marshall.

"To see the star getting piggybacked across the river – because apparently that's safer than having her ride the horse across. Go figure."
"Action!" Kurilenko canters into shot, dismounts, grabs the prosthetic body and hacks at it with axe/Blood geysers up and out. But the head simply won't come off. And, "Cut!" She starts shaking her wrist in pain. "It's hard!" Kurilenko looks concerned. "I was doing my best!" This isn't Quantum of Solace, with its boundless blockbuster budget. There's only one dummy, which the crew quickly patch up, as she watches the playback with Marshall.

"Like I say," he says, "if the head comes off this time, throw in the river." Take two: canter, axe, rage a noggin soon bob-bob-bobbin'downstream... Welcome to Centurion: decapitation a go-go.

"A Demon stalks us day and night, relentless as death itself." – Quintus (Michael Fassbender)

"There's certainly a lot of head-chopping, - says Michael Fassbender.
"It's the Picts' way of sticking the blade in the Romans. You had to be buried with head attached to body or they believed their soul wouldn't travel to the next world."
The 32-year-old is making a break for stardom in Centurion. He's impressed in everything from Eden Lake to Inglourious Basterds, and dealt with themes of empire and rebellion before, as IRA hunger-striker Bobby Sands in Hunger. It's something of a stretch to link Steve McQueen's austere drama with Marshall's rambunctious actioner, but Fassbender isn't blind to the fact Centurion touches on the idea of occupation. He's read a couple of Steven Pressfield's historical novels in preparation (Gate Of Fire and The Afghan Campaign) and his character, Quintus, certainly learns the invidious nature of imperialism.

"I guess you can always make modern-day parallels, to the occupation in Iraq," he says. "But it's idea of someone who believes in an ethos, becomes disillusioned and comes to his own sort of beliefs. He's been let down by the system he's given his life up for.
So there are parallels, and it's interesting when you take it out of our timeframe and stick it back 2,000 years. People are more likely to take it on board than a film about Iraq that's too close to the bone," If Centurion is political, it's with a small 'p' – mostly it's about, as he has it, "Roman on the run".
And he's no stranger to on-screen action, having been part of 300. The harsh location shoot of Centurion couldn't be further from Zack Snyder's studio-bound hit, though. "That was a controlled environment," he says. "Here, we're dealing with elements."

The Falls Of Pattack are very beautiful. But it's not the look that could kill you. Safety divers tread water in the river that runs through this high-sided mountain gorge. Thirty feet up, stunt doubles prepare to jump down into the freezing abyss below.
Fassbender actually asked if he could do this himself, and had to be told no – what with it being a slight logistical issue if your lead actor dies mid-shoot. Truth is, he probably could have managed it. (Marshall describes him as a "genius", while nothing. "if I'd known him a school, I would have thought he was a tosser, because he's just excellent at everything.")
In this instance, doubles will take the fall, a desperate dive to freedom by Quintus and his men, to escape the relentless pursuit of the Picts. There's little need to be disappointed, though; in two days, Fassbender and co, will have the opportunity to take a dip in the sub-zero H20, swept downriver, Deliverance-style. And that be risky (and spectacular) enough.

It's a dangerous shoot. Not that there aren't precautions in place – the call sheets come with voluminous health and safely instructions. But still, Centurion is, as Marshall calls it, a "wilderness adventure" and the wild isn't easily tamed.
Riding with Fassbender's titular leader are in impressive ensemble of established and up-and-coming talent – Liam Cunningham, David Morrissey, Noel Clarke, JJ Field, Riz Ahmed, Dimitri Leonidas – and together this magnificent seven will have to endure.

The first day was a baptism not a fire, but ice. The cast found themselves high in the Cairngorm mountains, tramping through four feet of show.
Four-wheel drives couldn't make the journey; they had to go up in half-tracks designed for the Norwegian military. "It was horrendous," – says David Morrissey, who plays Bothos, a veteran soldier upon whom Quintus relies.
"We went up in these things, like little tanks. That was a real bonding experience: just screaming at each other as we though we were going to go over the side of the mountain."

Cunningham has worked with Marshall before, on Dog Soldiers, and knows there's no danger of being mollycoddled. Still, even he wasn't prepared for that first day.
"We went out in the morning going, "What the fuck are we doing this for?" - We found Noel Clarke in a snow drift, crying like a child." He laughs. "You have to have a sense of humour on this one..."

Clarke did not, it should be pointed out, have a toddler-style meltdown, though the Adulthood star did have to thaw out.
"I got frostbit," he says. "The next morning I said, 'You guys still can't feel your feet, right?' They were like, "Yeah, we're fine!", so I got checked out by the medic and I had the early stage of frostbit. I mean, nothing fallen off..."

Appendages infact, today Clarke has to work them. As the stunt-jumpers dry out below, he and his Roman comrades shoot the run-up in the cliff-fall, yomping up a vertiginous hill. They have to look tired and desperate. It doesn't require a lot of acting. As JJ Field, who came down with hypothermia mid-shoot, later observer, "Whatever happens use-it!" Post-take, Clarke passes Kurilenko on her way to shoot her segment of the scene.

"Good luck." "Why?" "Are you running up the hill? Good luck."
"Ah," she says, smiling, "a workout!"
Fassbender walks over to a monitor where Robert Jones (who is sharing producing duties with Slumdog Millionaire's Christian Colson) is watching the playback.
"How does it look, Robert?"
"Harrowing."

"I'm general Titus Flavius Virilus, Commander of the Ninth Legion. We've come looking for a Fight." – Virilus (Dominic West)

Work hard, play hard. It's late. The bar at the Highlands Hotel in Aviemore has closed and probably needs to restock on whisky. You have to hand it to the actors. After exhausting days in dangerous locations, they often hit the gym in the evenings, to keep in fighting shape. The discipline is horribly impressive. But it doesn't stop them enjoying a drink or two.
It's the first day for Dominic West and we’re in Riz Ahmed's room, listening to the Shifty star's own music, specifically controversial pop ditty Post 9/11 Blues (You Tube it). West has been wildly, enjoyably indiscreet for hours, but will turn a funny colour in five minutes, when he realizes Empire isn't a crew member.
The following morning, he strolls up sheepishly and declares, in a theatrical tone, "Everything I told you last night was a lie!" It's not hard to see why Marshall says, of a huge bar brawl sparked by Virilus.

"Dominic was possessed by the spirit of Oliver Reed!" In costume, he certainly looks the part. "I know it sounds wanky," says West, "but I really like this character. I didn't realize until recently, he was real. And he's such a nutter. He's great with his men and it's inspiring to play people like that."
Plus, of course, as General of the Ninth Legion, you get to fight with Olga Kurilenko.
"Well. Yeah, that was one of the main reasons for doing this – thinking it was hand-to-hand, in mud pit..."

"We live united or die divided... Starting with you." – Quintus

"Neil is one of those directors who really enjoys what he's doing," says Michael Fassbender.
"He's the calmest guy ever. He's so sweet," offers Olga Kurilenko.
“Neil's at the forefront of the evolution of British film, states Noel Clarke. "That's your pull-quote!"

No-one talks about Doomsday. Perhaps it was the victim of expectations. Perhaps it just wasn't very good. For certain, the fall is harder in the UK when you're home-grown, and after Dog Soldiers and The Descent, Neil Marshall took a kicking for his third film. The box office was poor, the critical reaction muted. It doesn't stop him being a talented director. It does mean, in a credit-crunched British industry where backers run from risk, that the pressure is on with Centurion.

If Marshall’s worried, he doesn't show it on set. And in London, 12 weeks later, he's not sweating bullets, either. "It was unfortunate," he says of Doomsday's reception. "I don't regret it, I'm proud of it and there are a lot of people out there who think it's great fun. I set out to make a homage, the same as Tarantino did with Death Proof. I'd rather do that than a remake of Escape From New York. John Carpenter liked it, so who am I to complain?"

We're in Soho cafe, having just watched some Centurion sequences in the edit suite. The footage needs to be graded – with the bleached, bleak look of Saving Private Ryan – but it appears to have captured the raw action and scale of the extreme shoot.
Marshall says he's aiming to create "something that hasn't been done in this country before". In truth, certain elements from Centurion may feel oddly familiar but because they are the tropes of a genre that thrived an age ago: the Western.
While first impressions scream Gladiator, this is closer in spirit to Stagecoach or Ethan's revenge mission in The Searchers. "The Picts are like the Indians and our Romans are like the cavalry," says Marshall. "So, a Scottish-Roman Western! Who'd have thought?!"

The last time that was successfully attempted of was 1968's Witchfinder General, set during the English Civil War. That was director Michael Reeves' final film before, stressed about his next project, he died of an accidental barbiturate overdose.
Marshall, however, doesn't appear to have such concerns. In the six years it took to make Dog Soldiers, he never considered quitting. Now, his fourth feature is in the can and his childhood filmmaking friend, Mike, is one of the writers on Sherlock Holmes (as Michael Robert Johnson).

"I have them (the early short films) on DVD for keepsake, says Marshall, "From the first one we graduated to a 20-minute film – the same kind of stuff: the hero running through the woods." He laughs. "Every one of my films has somebody running through the woods. Even The Decent!" From Raiders to Romans, a dream and determination has taken Neil Marshall a long way.
"The thing for me", he says, "is whenever I meet people, they only ever want to talk about The Descent. Doomsday has been swept under the carpet. I want to give them something new to talk about..." He laughs again and finishes his coffee, before heading back to the edit with final thought: "A friend of mine said the best thing you could possibly say before I was about to shoot Centurion. He said, 'Doomsday was your 1941... and remember what Spielberg made after 1941!' Now, I would never dare to say Centurion is my Raiders, but that did uplift me. That's something to aim for."