Martin Scorsese on 'Silence:' 'I knew I wanted to make it, but I didn't know how'

NEW YORK, Dec. 23 (UPI) -- Oscar-winning filmmaker Martin Scorsese says he waited for decades to adapt Shusaku Endo's novel Silence for the silver screen, but it took years for him to figure out exactly how to do it.

"Twenty-eight, 30 years ago, what was most important about it was the fact that I knew I wanted to make it, but I didn't know how and, so, it's taken about 20 years to reach this form," Scorsese said at a New York press conference promoting the critically acclaimed film, which is in theaters now.

"It took many years to re-read the book, make notes all the way through and, ultimately, make a lot of other pictures and it seemed to refine itself as the years went by until... December 2006 we were able -- Jay [Cocks] and I -- to write the script after I'd structured what I wanted to show from the book and also we were able to tackle the last, I'd say, 30 pages of the book, which were the toughest."

The 17th century-set epic stars Adam Driver and Andrew Garfield as Portuguese, Catholic missionaries who travel to Japan, where Christianity is illegal under penalty of torture and death, to find their missing mentor, Father Christavao Ferreira, played by Liam Neeson. The cast also features Ciaran Hinds, Tadanobu Asano and Issey Ogata.

Scorsese, Cocks and Neeson previously collaborated on 2002's Gangs of New York.