Jake Gyllenhaal almost landed one of the lead roles in Alex Garland’s Oscar-winning debut film Ex Machina after the filmmaker and his longtime producer Andrew Macdonald were urged to consider the actor in order to secure financing.

“The distribution companies wanted us to cast Jake Gyllenhaal because he’s profitable and they can sell him overseas,” Macdonald said yesterday afternoon during a Q&A with Garland at this year’s Edinburgh Film Festival.

“That would have changed the whole movie,” Macdonald continued, adding that negotiations with Gyllenhaal’s representatives ultimately didn’t get very far.

“I remember talking to Jake Gyllenhaal’s lawyer about his needs. It would never have worked,” Macdonald said to laughter from the packed stadium in Edinburgh.

Alicia Vikander and Oscar Isaac were later cast in the film’s lead roles, but Macdonald added that neither actor had enough clout at the time to “raise the money through international sales.” Macdonald and Garland instead decided to turn to Hollywood to secure financing. They said that thanks to a unique set of circumstances, this gave them the freedom to bring in the collaborators they wanted.

“We decided to make the film with Universal International, and they had a film with Oscar Isaac, the Coen brothers’ film, and they believed it would win Oscars, so they thought it would be a winner,” Macdonald said. “They also had a film with Alicia Vikander that they thought would be a winner as well, so they supported us.”

Garland described Ex Machina as his favorite directing effort to date, saying it served as an antidote to some of the “toxic” film sets he had worked on as a writer.

“The cast was young, hardworking and dedicated,” Garland said of his Ex Machina Crew. “We had a friendly crew that believed in the project and worked hard. There was a good atmosphere and everyone pulled together.”

Garland continued to give a little more insight into Ex Machina, and tells audiences the origins of the film’s now-viral disco dance scene. In the scene, crazed billionaire Nathan, played by Oscar Isaac, breaks out into a spontaneous dance with his mute, human android, played by Sonoya Mizuno.

Garland said he constructed the scene to intentionally break the tone of the film to avoid it appearing monotonous like never let Me Goa 2010 feature film directed by American filmmaker Mark Romanek and written by Garland.

“I remember showing the film to my then wife, who said it was a very solid 6/10,” Garland said of never let Me Go. “The problem with the film had nothing to do with the source material. It was a brilliant novel. The film struck a certain tone but then didn’t change that tone. In some ways it’s a good film, but in this way it’s flawed.”

Garland added: “The reason why the Ex Machina Disco dance scene exists, is because never let Me Go. I thought I had to disrupt what was happening in the film. I couldn’t be afraid of disrupting the sound. In fact, I had to try to disrupt the sound. And it became a GIF.”

never let Me Go was an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Nobel Prize winner Kazuo Ishiguro and one of the last screenplays Garland wrote for another director. Garland later directed Ex Machina, Annihilation, Men, And Civil Warall with Macdonald on board as producer. The pair have teamed up again to revisit one of their previous projects, the zombie film 28 days later. Garland has written a sequel entitled 28 years laterwhich is the first part of a 28 years trilogy. Danny Boyle is directing the film, which Macdonald said is complete in production and is set in the north of England.

“We start part two tomorrow morning. And then we hope there will be a part three and it will be a trilogy,” Macdonald said.

The Edinburgh Film Festival ends on Wednesday.