The Furiosa, Mad Max and Happy Feet director talks tap dancing, life as a twin and what he’d tell his younger self

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What is the best thing about being a twin?

The shared experience. We spent the first 20 years of our lives together every day. We both have a similar curiosity about the world, and he practised as a doctor for 50 years. His take on human behaviour was really amusing, funny and very wise. It was always interesting to have conversations with him, so we would just compare notes. It’s why I love collaborating with people because it’s always about the discourse.

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The all-new Rebus is physical and forceful with a fag in hand and a willingness to crack skulls – but in a world full of shows about troubled, maverick cops, will he possibly be able to stand out?

It starts promisingly, with a cigarette in Rebus’s mouth. In Ian Rankin’s noirish crime novels, Detective Sergeant John Rebus is an antihero to whom booze, fags and violence are key. Within a few minutes of the new BBC One dramatisation, the Edinburgh copper – played by Richard Rankin, no relation – has ticked off two of those three old-fashioned vices, flicking his tab to the tarmac before seriously assaulting a suspect. That the wrong’un whose skull is cracked is Rebus’s gangster nemesis Ger Cafferty (Stuart Bowman) suggests that this Rebus will please fans of the seamy books.

This, however, is a younger Rebus, still just a sergeant, but operating in the present day: screenwriter Gregory Burke plucks themes and characters from the literary timeline, as the fancy takes him. Gill Templer (Caroline Lee-Johnson) is Rebus’s boss, and so far she’s a by-numbers chief superintendent, urging our man to “find out what happened here, and nip it in the bud!” when gangsters stab a guy in the city centre in broad daylight. Rebus’s sidekick Siobhan (Lucie Shorthouse) is a new arrival from England, fast-tracked into the detective ranks with her fancy degree in anthropology, not receptive to Rebus’s wisdom about how things work in Edinburgh. Internal affairs stickybeak Malcolm Fox (Thoren Ferguson) is prowling suavely in Rebus’s peripheral vision.

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A thoroughly implausible yarn about a Mexican cartel leader who hires a lawyer to arrange his transition, but is carried along by its cheesy Broadway energy

Anglo-progressives and US liberals might worry about whether or not certain stories are “theirs to tell”. But that’s not a scruple that worries French auteur Jacques Audiard who, with amazing boldness and sweep, launches into this slightly bizarre yet watchable musical melodrama of crime and gender, set in Mexico. It plays like a thriller by Amat Escalante with music and lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda, and a touch of Almodovar.

Argentinian trans actor Karla Sofia Gascon plays Juan “Manitas” Del Monte, a terrifyingly powerful and ruthless cartel leader in Mexico, married to Jessi (Selena Gomez), with two young children. Manitas is intrigued by a high-profile murder trial in which an obviously guilty defendant gets off due to his smart and industrious lawyer Rita (Zoe Saldana); she is nearing 40 and secretly wretched from devoting her life to protecting unrepentant slimeballs, who go on to get ever richer while she labours for pitiful fees. Manitas kidnaps Rita and makes her an offer she can’t refuse: a one-off job for an unimaginably vast amount of money on which she can retire.

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Steven Moffat’s return to Doctor Who has alien planets, murderous AI – and Ncuti Gatwa trapped in an incredibly tense race against time

After two episodes, where Doctor Who seemed determined to greet any potential new Disney viewers with everything that could be fun, camp and ridiculous about the show, this was a darker turn from the pen of former showrunner Steven Moffat.

The conceit that the Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) could not move for nearly the whole episode, and instead had to rely on Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) to get him out of a fix, dialled up the tension and gave both actors a chance to deepen their characterisations. Ruby is clearly prepared to take risks, and this Doctor is more vulnerable and emotional than some previous incarnations. You could imagine Peter Capaldi trying to sarcasm his way out of being stuck on a landmine, rather than being forced to sing a haunting soldier’s lament to calm the nerves.

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The US-based writer and translator on his new novel set in 1930s Vienna, his deep connection with the authors he has worked with and why he always returns to Donna Tartt’s The Secret History

Sam Taylor, 53, was living in rural France with four well-received novels to his name when he realised that he wasn’t going to be able to support his family through writing alone. After being turned down for bar work in nearby Lourdes, he decided to try literary translating, starting with Laurent Binet ’s Goncourt-winning novel HHhH . So began an award-winning second career that has seen him work with high-profile authors including Leila Slimani and David Diop . Now based in Texas, he has returned to novel-writing with The Two Loves of Sophie Strom . Centring on a provocative idea, it opens in 1930s Vienna as antisemitic neighbours torch 13-year-old Max Spiegelman’s home. In a parallel universe, the fire leaves Max an orphan, and he’s adopted by an Aryan family who rename him Hans and encourage him to join the Hitler-Jugend. At night, Max and Hans, on opposing sides of history, dream of each other’s lives.

Where did the idea come from?
Weirdly enough, the spark came from a line in my first novel [ The Republic of Trees , 2005], about the night self and the day self, the waking self and the sleeping self. It’s sliding doors, except the twist is Max and Hans are dreaming about each other, so they’re aware of each other’s lives.

The Two Loves of Sophie Strom by Sam Taylor is published by Faber (£18.99). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com . Delivery charges may apply

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The cultural sector falls short on other measures of diversity too, with 9o% of workers white, says new report

Six in 10 of all arts and culture workers in the UK now come from middle-class backgrounds, compared with just over 42% of the wider workforce, according to new research.

And while 23% of the UK workforce is from a working-class background, working-class people are underrepresented in every area of arts and culture. They make up 8.4% of those working in film, TV, radio and photography, while in museums, archives and libraries, the proportion is only 5.2%.

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The maverick director and his trusted cast on making Kinds of Kindness, the ‘bonkers’ film causing a stir on the Croisette

Joe Alwyn, the British star of one the most disturbing films to compete at the Cannes festival this year, has given his verdict on making the “bonkers” Kinds of Kindness , which features scenes of group sex, cannibalism and violence and in which Alwyn has to perform a drug rape on the character played by Oscar-winner Emma Stone . “You have to try not to unpack it all too much, or you get it stuck in your head,” he said on Saturday.

The 33-year-old, until now best known as a former partner of Taylor Swift, has been thrust into the glaring lights of Cannes this weekend, but has also had to survive entering the odd imagination of Poor Things director Yorgos Lanthimos. Alwyn said the best way to prepare himself for Lanthimos’s unsettling and explicit screen world had been to “trust him, trust him, trust him”. “It is bizarre and strange and bonkers and special,” Alwyn added, “but one of the reasons I love his films is because you feel it first, before you try to understand it all.”

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Tal Danino’s day job at Columbia University, New York, is engineering “living” medicines. “We program microbes for cancer therapy using synthetic biology,” he says. As a side hustle he manipulates and photographs the microbial world; his images are collected in a book, Beautiful Bacteria. Taking bacteria from substances such as wastewater, dental plaque or kimchi, Danino lets them multiply in a petri dish, adding dyes. The results are artworks differing from the digital enhancements often made in scientific photography to make images more informative. Indeed, he says, the microbes deserve some credit: “They do often deviate from our plans, becoming active collaborators in the creation of the work.”

Beautiful Bacteria: Encounters in the Microuniverse is published by Rizzoli (£38.50). To order a copy for £33.88 go to guardianbookshop.com or call 020-3176 3837

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These images highlighting themes of climate resilience, personal trauma and identity are part of an exhibition of the work of students from more than 25 different countries

• The annual student showcase will be on view for at the International Center of Photography from 18 May until 2 September

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