For only his second outing as a director, Steve Jacobs decided to go big — filming JM Coetzee's intricately nuanced, politically charged Booker Prize-winning novel 'Disgrace'.

But, tackling a book he variously describes as "a realistic and brutal examination of characters" and "one of the great contemporary works in English literature", didn't overly concern the Australian.

"When you start these things you just have to put one foot in front of the next," he tells me calmly on the phone from Sydney. "You don't think of the mountain ahead — you've got to keep going.

"It was certainly a big project logistically and artistically but it was a unique project and we grabbed it."

And he felt he was up to the challenge of telling the story of a disgraced university professor who must face harrowing realities on his daughter's farm.

"When you have something as massive, if you like, as 'Disgrace', without being egotistical, you have to think in quite realistic terms whether you can do it or not. If you don't think you can do it, then you shouldn't tackle it.

"If you think you can bring something to it, then as an artist you must do it."

So, although he admits "I'm not a social commentator on South Africa nor do I pretened to have any knowledge really of the country", Jacobs felt he could do justice to Coetzee's exploration of race, violence, sexuality, rape, morality and reconciliation — specifically by focusing on the people caught up in it all.

"We concentrated on knowing the characters, creating the characters and casting the characters," he explains with the authority of a man who has 25 years experience as an actor.

"Casting is 90 percent of the job of the performance, finding the right people to bring those certain elements that we felt were in the book to the screen.

"And I tried to make it as complex as the book, but of course it has a different complexity because cinema is a different medium and perhaps is more emotional than a novel is."

But sacrifices had to be made.

"There are many elements in the book that aren't in the film," Jacobs adds.

"There are characters that aren't in the film but I think the intention, which was our desire to get, is there."

Not that it was easy getting there. John Malkovich suffered particularly in the lead role of David Lurie.

"Apart from the emotions and issues that were brought up in the film, it's also quite a cerebral part and a lot of his scenes demanded a certain complexity in his character.

"But also physically it was a very exhausting shoot. We shot seven weeks in South Africa and one week in Sydney. The South African shoot was out on the farm which was hot and windy and unpleasant some days, so it was taxing on that front as well.

"And of course John was, I think, in every scene — so it was a tough shoot. And it was shot very quickly.

"I had the gun at my head every moment of the day and night," he chuckles wryly.

But Jacobs has no regrets.

"I felt that it was an incredibly invigorating experience," he says.

"I have an affection for South Africa and I hope the people embrace the film for what it is: a piece of art, but not representing their entire society, just a sliver of it."

And as for JM Coetzee?

"Mr Coetzee had the right of approval over the script. When the script was presented to him he approved it and that was his involvement in the production."

And the director was just fine with that hands-off approach.

"Well, I think that's the only way you can direct a film. If there's a committee behind you, what's the point?"

It's a sentiment with which Coetzee himself would certainly agree.