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Fri 11 Nov 2006TRICKS OF THE TRADEChristopher Nolan has conjured up a career that has managed to keep both critics and audiences onside. After stumping up his own cash to finance his debut feature, he has found himself handling bigger and bigger budgets (Memento) and the odd Hollywood blockbuster (Batman Begins). He tells Donald Clarke about his latest venture, The Prestige, and explains how he's pulled it all offSure enough, as I am making my way to the Dorchester Hotel on Monday afternoon, the dizzyingly ubiquitous Johansson grin - visible from outer space my advisors tell me - beams out from the front page of every Evening Standard. Why bother inviting journalists to interview the director of your film when a brief wave from Scarlett will guarantee the sort of coverage normally accorded the death of a pope? Anyway, Christopher Nolan, the director of The Prestige, which offers Johansson a role as modest as the one she had in The Black Dahlia (remember the photos), has seen fit to turn up and chat to me about this and that. After that premiere in Leicester Square, Chris allowed himself a few drinks and, day following night as it does, he now admits to feeling somewhat hungover. Still he looks clean and fresh - if eerily like a younger Harry Enfield - and seems capable of stringing together impressively lengthy sentences.