John Dahl is exasperated. “I don’t think that people in Hollywood get me,” he says. “I struggle to get my films made, I sit there and defend every choice, and still they look at me and say: ‘Gee, we don’t know what to do with this film.’ ” The 51-year-old director is describing his hard-knock career as a Hollywood auteur constantly battling studio interference. His movies, such as The Last Seduction (1994) and Joy Ride (2001), have rarely had an easy birth.

However, after the commercial failure of his recent $70 million (£34 million) Second World War epic The Great Raid, Dahl has retreated to the freedoms of the indie film-making world and directed what might be his lightest and sweetest movie yet, You Kill Me.

The film, a quirky screwball noir, stars Ben Kingsley as an alcoholic hit-man who is sent to Alcoholics Anonymous by the Mob. It’s the sort of film, a deft mix of light and shade, that could not have been made by mainstream Hollywood, Dahl says. “It would have been completely different if a studio got it,” he says. “They would have put it through the testing process and said: ‘Shouldn’t it be funnier here? Shouldn’t it be more violent there?’ ”

It’s this penchant for mixing genres – taking film noir conventions and sticking them in unlikely scenarios, such as a 12-step AA programme – that has baffled Dahl’s detractors from the start. His breakout movie The Last Seduction, a noir set in a tiny Midwestern town, was unceremoniously dumped on to cable TV until audiences on the European festival circuit began to appreciate its twisty narrative and mordant humour. “Linda Fiorentino and Peter Berg [the film’s stars] went to the Deauville Film Festival with the film,” recalls Dahl. “And I remember Peter calling me up and saying: ‘You can’t believe how much people like your movie over here!’

“The film did so well in Europe that it got released theatrically in the US. So it seems that I have a career in the movie business only because audiences outside of Los Angeles have discovered my movies.”

Dahl, one of four children of an insurance salesman and a housewife, grew up in Montana in the Seventies, “where the idea of going into film-making is just so far removed from reality”. An epiphany in high school during a screening of A Clockwork Orange changed all that and Dahl, inspired by the potent combination of music, art and drama in Kubrick’s movie, enrolled in Montana State University’s film course. There he met and befriended the actor Bill Pullman who, although only three years older, was already teaching a drama class at the college. Dahl would later cast Pullman in key roles in both The Last Seduction (as Fiorentino’s crooked husband) and You Kill Me (as a sleazy estate agent).

He moved to LA in 1983, studied for a year at the American Film Institute, shot some pop promos for Kool and the Gang and, together with the likes of David Fincher (Seven) and Dominic Sena (Swordfish) became one of the new breed of MTV directors determined to break into Hollywood.

“At the time I was very confident, almost to the point of being obnoxious,” he confesses. “I’m sure I wasn’t all that pleasant to be around. I didn’t need any feedback from anyone else. I was just sure I was going to be a film director.”

Dahl says that his confidence has continued throughout his career, with its critical smashes such as Red Rock West (1992) and Rounders (1998), although his arrogance has thankfully diminished.

He says that no matter how well you think you’re doing in the movie business, an abject lesson in humility is always just around the corner. His dark, road-rage thriller Joy Ride, for instance, was finally screened at the Toronto Film Festival after 18 months of difficult production, reshoots and studio interference. “And people really liked it,” he says. “Which was such a relief, considering I’d spent a year and a half of my life on this thing.

“But then I hop on a plane back to LA – on September 10, 2001. And the next day nobody’s thinking about movies any more, and for sure no one wants to see a thriller.”

Dahl lives in LA with his wife Beth and four children. He says that when he’s not directing movies he’s simply being a dad, and that he didn’t move to LA for the glamour, and certainly not for the party scene. “I went out recently and someone asked me: ‘Do you live here now?’ I said, ‘Yes, I’ve actually been here for 20 years.’ ” He says, too, that he’s not bothered by the ageing process, and that working with a veteran such as Kingsley has inspired him. “Ben has made more than 90 movies,” he says. “That sort of durability and longevity is incredible. I feel like I’m only just figuring out how to make movies.” He adds, with a sly grin: “Directors don’t die, anyway. They just fade away.”

You Kill Me goes on general release Thursday 6 December 2007

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