Words by Quentin Falk

You worry whether there are enough hours in the day for producer Nira Park as she helps manage the ever-expanding fortunes of Big Talk, the company she founded back in 1995.

Not content with producing her first North American film venture, she then found herself having to juggle two at either end of a very large continent when both Paul and Scott Pilgrim Vs The World were in production at the same time.

The films, involving her long-time collaborators – writer-director Edgar Wright and writer-actors Simon Pegg and Nick Frost – resulted in a 7-hour commute every other Sunday from Toronto to Sante Fe, New Mexico with a two-and-a-half-year-old child in hand.

“The timing,” she admits,” couldn’t have been worse.” However, with a supportive partner (director Jeremy Lovering), plus a red-hot Blackberry, iPhone and laptop, it clearly proved do-able. Not to mention with what she describes as a “brilliant support network” back at HQ in Nassau Street, W1 where it all began with just three people – it’s now 23 – more than 15 years ago.

But if that sounds exhausting, it’s nothing compared to what’s conjured up as she excitedly recites the “insanely busy” current/future slate of Big Talk projects for both big and small screen ahead of the release of the company’s much-anticipated new movie release, Attack The Block, the feature debut of writer-director Joe Cornish.

There are, to mention just a few, second series of Friday Night Dinner, Him & Her and the BAFTA-nominated Rev; Baby Love, a comedy drama for Comedy Central; a Friday night entertainment show for C4 hosted by Claudia Winkleman; and “a massive thing for ITV called Show Me The Funny, a kind of Apprentice-style show for stand-up comics.” That’s just for the telly.

Then, deep breath, film-wise? “We hope to make two films back to back with the exceptionally talented Ben Wheatley and his team, Sightseers and I, Macrobane. There’s Ascension Eagles, the amazing story, which Daisy Donovan is writing, of Shara Brice and the cheerleading group she set up in East London about 16 years ago.

“We have a dance movie with Nick Frost – that’s dance not darts,” she laughs, “and a new project that Simon [Pegg] and Nick are about to start writing. Edgar and Joe are in the early stages of Ant Man for Marvel, while Simon and Edgar are also beginning to think about World’s End, the third in their ‘trilogy’ following Shaun Of The Dead and Hot Fuzz.”

What she has no time for is the idea of directing. “I’d be absolutely useless. I like being behind the scenes. I’m a sort of maternal figure, and wouldn’t want to be centre stage, as it were. I’m good at getting the best out of people, which is what directors need.

“I suppose it’s a sort of nurturing thing. That’s probably why the people I’ve worked with have stayed around for so long. I hope I am there for them completely, 24 hours a day.”

"I like being behind the scenes. I’m a sort of maternal figure, and wouldn’t want to be centre stage, as it were. I’m good at getting the best out of people, which is what directors need."

The latest filmmaker to feel the benefit of Park’s round-the-clock commitment is, of course, Joe Cornish, who after dreaming about his feature debut for many years finally brought it to fruition thanks to Big Talk, with whom he’d had a kind of informal relationship for quite a while.

"Having spent so long thinking about and developing the film, Joe knew exactly what he wanted to do. But it was very ambitious for a first time director so we had to surround him with the very best people to help bring his vision to life.

“On 'The Adam & Joe Show' they literally did everything themselves, so learning to trust the crew to do their jobs took some getting used to. It turned out to be a collaboration in the truest sense and I absolutely loved working with Joe and making the film. It was a great experience - particularly working with the young cast, ” says Park.

This South London-based action horror-comedy has already had a thumbs up from the States where it won an audience award at the prestigious SXSW Festival in Austin, Texas ahead of being picked up for US release by Sony’s Screen Gems subsidiary.

Park, Women in Film & Television’s current Producer of the Year, clearly has a soft spot for the States, which has generally embraced Big Talk’s work. While Edgar Wright has had the likes of Tarantino and Romero “reaching out to him,” her thrill, she relates almost wide-eyed, was a dinner invitation from veteran producer Kathleen Kennedy. “That was amazing; just brilliant. We talked about Spielberg’s work, storyboards…”

With all the big screen activity at Big Talk, is Park’s real preference for film rather than TV, the latter yielding of course, the ever-popular Spaced, which got the whole company story started back in the Nineties?

“I wouldn’t say that film was more my interest because I’d like nothing more than to do another multi-cam TV sitcom. But I suppose my main focus is film probably because we’re still building Big Talk and because my primary talent relationships are with Edgar, Simon and Nick, who are working in film.”

Park, double BAFTA winner for C4 comedy Black Books and nominee for Spaced and Shaun Of The Dead, describes her company as “a weird kind of cottage industry. I hope that doesn’t change.”

Nira Park’s Top Tip for Aspiring Producers

"Nurture relationships with talent because without that, I don’t think a producer is anything. Essentially, the producer is not the talent; we are here just to facilitate. Nurture and develop relationships and remember that it’s not about you and your ego, but about them. If you can then sustain those relationships, you’ll continue to work."

Attack The Block is now on general release.