Layer Cake

After producing Guy Ritchie’s first three features (including Snatch), Matthew Vaughn initially wasn’t too keen on making his directorial debut with a gangster film. ”But I thought in a way it’s actually easier to make my mark, because everybody’s going to be expecting a certain type of [gangster] film from me,” says Vaughn, a.k.a. Mr. Claudia Schiffer. ”If I make a different type of [gangster] film, maybe I’ll be creating my own identity.” Mission accomplished. Vaughn’s subtly stylized crime caper, starring Sylvia‘s Daniel Craig as a crook on the verge of retirement, caused a stir in the U.K. and landed Vaughn the gig as director of X-Men 3. ”I felt that this could be the make or the break of me,” Vaughn admits. ”It was going to give me a new career or be a cork in the career I thought was going rather well.”