by Fraser Massey, Now, Winter or Spring 2003

The Dreamcatcher story was written by best-selling horror novelist Stephen King from his hospital bed after he'd been run over by a car and almost killed. The incident was obviously still preying on his mind as the lead character is knocked down by a fast-moving vehicle.

Brit actor Damian Lewis plays a character who has to use both an American accent and a British one. "I had a dialect coach helping me with my American accent," he says. "But in the end he had to help me with my English one as well because I spent so much time talking like an American that I didn't sound convincing when I went back to talking naturally again."

Morgan Freeman was thrilled to find himself cast as a villain for once. "I do all these characters where I have gravitas and I'm stable, dignified and dependable," he says. "I feel like I'm boring the world to death. It's fun to be able to let my dark side shine through for once."

Damian Lewis, who initially came to the attention of US audiences in Steven Spielberg's wartime epic TV drama Band Of Brothers, is expected to be working for Spielberg on TV again soon. The massively successful director wants to cast him in the second series of his alien abduction sci-fi drama Taken.

The production needed so much snow that -- although it was filmed in British Columbia -- the crew couldn't just rely on nature to meet their needs.

"We have a complete smorgasbord of snow on view in the movie," says production designer Jon Hutman. "We had the real snow that had fallen naturally on the location, more real snow that we had trucked in and snow we made ourselves from water, which we blew in with a wind machine. We also had paper snow of various sizes, which we had laying on the ground. And finally there was popcorn snow made from corn starch."

Award-winning screenwriter William Goldman, who adapted the novel for the cinema, says Stephen King is probably the most popular writer since Charles Dickens. "But critics don't like him precisely because he's too prolific and too popular," he says.

For more information, visit www.warnerbros.co.uk/movies/dreamcatcher.

Caption: Gung ho Colonel Curtis (Freeman) has been chasing these aliens for years.

Caption: Jonesy (Lewis) needs a steady hand if he's going to get out of ths alive.