Matt Reeves and actress Lizzy Caplan on the set of Cloverfield Sam Emerson/Courtesy of Paramount

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Although the name you most often hear associated with the mysterious monster movie Cloverfield is producer J.J. Abrams' (Lost, Mission: Impossible III), the man in charge of staging the epic monster siege of Manhattan is director Matt Reeves. A close friend and associate of Abrams, Reeves is known more for his TV work (he co-created the hit drama Felicity) than for film, yet his mix of intimate character moments and gob-smacking sci-fi action is certain to endear him to fans of the genre. Not bad for a guy whose reaction to the offer to direct Cloverfield was, "Why me?" Here, he chats with Premiere about why he's the least likely guy to film a monster movie, and why that's probably a good thing.

PREMIERE: So how did the whole Cloverfield project originate?
MATT REEVES: J.J. [Abrams] and I have been friends for a long time — we actually met as kids making movies, and we've always trusted each other creatively. He and I created Felicity together, and he produced the first film that I did (The Pallbearer). So, he had just done Mission: Impossible III and he had gone to Japan with his son, Henry. They were there for the premiere and they decided to go to a toy store because J.J. loves gadgets and toys and so does Henry, and he was struck by this huge display, the presence of Godzilla in a way that wasn't like you'd normally go to a toy store and there's some toy and it has a display. It was a dominating presence and he just had this sense of it being a national icon. And he started thinking about how we don't really have an equivalent. Maybe the closest might have been King Kong but we don't really have a national monster. So that got him excited, thinking, "Wouldn't it be great if we made a monster movie that could be our national monster?" So that was really the genesis of the idea, and then he went with that idea to Drew Goddard, who is a writer on Lost — and all you had to say was "I want to do a giant monster movie" and Drew was ecstatic. [laughs] So they talked about it and worked up this outline. So I was in the process of casting this movie called The Invisible Woman and J.J. started talking to me about it, saying it would be really fun to do it handi-cam and this whole thing, but I was working on my movie and I thought it sounded fantastic and fun but I didn't have any idea I would have anything to do with it. And then about 3 or 4 months later J.J. came to me and said, "Remember that monster movie I was telling you about?" And I said, "Yeah." And he said, "Well, we just got the green light, and I know you're doing Invisible Woman but you should do this first because it's now." I said, "Can I read the script?" And he said, "There isn't a script." [laughs] So he had me read the outline and my first response was, "Oh my god, this is enormous." The scale of it was just so big. I said, "Obviously, I'm very flattered and I love working with you, but why are you guys thinking of me? This is a huge visual effects monster movie." And then they said, "We are interested in a kind of realism because of the handi-cam style and we want it to be a character story, and we know that you are particularly [good at that], because all of the work that I'd done prior had been character-based like Felicity and I co-wrote a film called The Yards with James Gray. That's the kind of stuff I'm drawn to. So they wanted to take this outrageous idea and do it in a very realistic style.