APPROPRIATELY ENOUGH for someone in the movie business, director James Foley lives in a house with a view of the iconic Hollywood sign in the hills above Los Angeles. Foley, 64, may not be a household name in these parts but he's a respected industry veteran and there's a good chance you may have seen something he's directed, either on TV or the big screen. Normally a low-profile filmmaker, he's about to get on the movie merry-go-round again, thanks to his latest uh, release. Fifty Shades Freed is the final instalment (Tagline: "Don't Miss the Climax") of the erotic romance based on the Fifty Shades trilogy by British author EL James, who has (so far) milked modern-day female fantasies to the tune of 125 million books and close to US$1 billion at the box office. Look no further for evidence that sex sells.

Foley also directed Fifty Shades Darker, the second film in the series that came out a year ago but was filmed back-to-back with Freed (the first film in the series was directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson in 2015). The latter two films represent the 12th and 13th in a varied portfolio for Foley, and he has been making movies since his debut with Reckless (1984). He spent several years away from feature films, plying his craft as a TV director (notably on two seasons of House of Cards) before Fifty Shades beckoned.

Foley was born in New York City and was slated to study pre-med in California until he took a six-week summer filmmaking course at NYU. "That was it," he says. Over the course of a 35-year career he has worked with some of the best in the business, including Al Pacino, Dustin Hoffman, Sean Penn and Kevin Spacey, an actor who has fallen from grace because of the multiple allegations of sexual misconduct against him. Foley's films have been both critically acclaimed and derided ("flaccid attempts at drama", said the Associated Press about Darker) but says he is unaffected by either good or bad reviews. He spoke to BT over the phone from his home.