Andrew Haigh Opens Up about Growing Up Gay and 'All of Us Strangers'

Haigh famously shot the film in the same house where he grew up – "I was entering my past as Adam was entering his," Haigh told the AP about making the film; "The whole process felt like a slightly expensive therapy session" – and he spoke about that choice with The New York Times, as well as addressing the striking moment when Adam first notices his father. The scene, the Times correspondent noted, plays at first like a possible pickup in a wooded area between Adam and a handsome stranger.

"It always made me laugh that no one's surprised when a straight guy goes for someone who's a bit like their mom – that's just like a natural thing – but no one ever says, 'Well, gay guys and queer guys, maybe they quite like someone who's a bit like their dad,'" Haigh noted. "I wanted to play with that because, to me, love is rooted in feeling comforted and safe and understood. That is what your parents give you, and it's no surprise that you might want it from a lover, too."

"And Jamie Bell looks super hot," the filmmaker added. "Who doesn't want to cruise him coming out of the trees?"

Haigh's real life father, however, is no longer able to carry on the sorts of conversations that father and son enjoy in the film. In discussing this, Haigh pointed up the difference between the wish fulfillment of art and the sometimes-hard truths of life.

"My dad has quite bad dementia and it came on while I was making the film, just a strange time for it to happen," Haigh explained. "During the shoot, I went up to visit him because he'd just been put into hospital, and he'd completely forgotten that I was gay. Had no memory of it: 'Oh, so you've got a wife? Are you married?' I was like, 'Oh, Christ.' I didn't tell him, I didn't say that I was with my partner."

Haigh did, however, have a chance to correct that.

"I did see my dad again and I brought my partner with me, so he's seen my partner now," the filmmaker recounted. "It was interesting because he was like, 'Well, as long as you found love, that's the important thing. That's all I care about.'"

Haigh added: "It just shows how you always have to still keep coming out," a situation he likened to grieving someone loved and lost. "When you lose someone, it's always just there as something in you. It felt like this film has such a perfect way to express how we can't move on from things unless we're helped to move on from those things."

As for his mother's response, "There was a lot of stuff that feels personal to her, and I don't underestimate how strange that must be," Haigh disclosed. "There's a scene that I have now made with some twisted version of me talking to a mother in the bed that used to be my mom's bed. That's not an easy thing for them to deal with, so I really do appreciate it. But she loves the film, she's super excited about it."

So are fans – all the more so as Oscars season approaches, with Andrew Scott's performance having sparked speculation that he might take home the statuette for Actor in a Leading Role.