"I'M NO TYRANT!" - TRANSFORMERS' DIRECTOR MICHAEL BAY TALKS TO THE MAIL

EXPLOSIVE action director Michael Bay fully remembers how he found his true vocation - by setting his mother's curtains on fire.

"I used to love playing with trains," says the man behind hits like The Rock and Armageddon.

"And then I used our Super 8 camera to film them.

"And then I set fire to a model, and the flames set fire to the bedroom drapes.

"We had to call the fire service out.

"And then I was grounded for three weeks!"

Like all of his stuntmen on Transformers 2, LA-born Bay diced with danger... and live to tell the tale.

"We've probably spent $4 to $5 million on explosions in this film, including all of the rigging that goes with them," he says.

Bay bridles at any suggestion from star Megan Fox that he rules film sets like a tyrant.

"If I did, I wouldn't have had the same crew for 16 years. I'm just a very passionate director."

Transformers 2 is incredibly violent, yet has been passed uncut by the British Board of Film Classification and awarded a 12A certificate, which means parents could take six, seven or eight-year-olds along.

Now aged 44, Bay says: "You raise your children anyway you can. I'm not saying you should take children under 12.

"In the US it's been passed at PG-13 (meaning 'a sterner warning by the Rating Board to parents to determine whether their children under age 13 should view the motion picture').

"I think children of 13 see Transformers as 'alien violence'. And they like it!"

Having made the mother of all bombastic action movies, where does Bay go from here?

"We only finished the film on June 10 (hence references as topical as President Obama and swine flu)," he says.

"I'd have to do a different film before considering a third Transformers' movie, the thought of which makes me nauseous.

"I don't like to use blue screens because I think the actors give you more when they are working with something going on all around them.

"I prefer reality to CGI and we've really tried to push the limits here with things like lighting and reflection.

"The stones falling off the pyramid took one guy six months of codewriting the algorithms and we're the first film to have three major sequences in full 4K rendered IMAX format.

"Next time, I think it would have to go sideways to a darker place with Transformers."

Michael admits that the original Transformers was something of a make-or-break career decision. Happily, his instincts were proved to be right...

"When I made the first one, I didn't know if I would ever work again," he says.

"Many studios didn't have the faith and lots of friends were asking me: 'Why are you doing that movie?' - which is kind of what I thought (myself) when I took it!

"Then, when we did a test screening of Transformers, one 43-year-old woman said: 'I don't like this kind of movie... but I love THIS movie!"