The award-winning 1917 director tells why his Neal Street Production company is adapting John Fowles’s 60s novel for TVA small Greek island, its wooded hills woven with timeless secrets, would make a welcome contrast to the carnage of first world war trenches. But if 1917 director Sir Sam Mendes now has a holiday isle near Athens in his sights, it is as the location of his next project, and not as a sunny destination before he is feted at Bafta and Oscar ceremonies next month.
![‘I fell in love with The Magus as a teenager’: Sam Mendes on going from wartime trenches to Greek idyll](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/6bcdc4963764d879b77ed9aef6e35e1791a7c8b3/63_152_2371_1422/master/2371.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdG8tZGVmYXVsdC5wbmc&enable=upscale&s=420970a282b6c8b0153614972795723c)
Mendes and his partners at Neal Street Productions are to make a major television adaptation of The Magus, the mysterious and much-loved novel by John Fowles. “Like many people, I read and loved it as a teenager,” Mendes said this weekend, as he unveiled his latest plans to the Observer.