Tom Ford’s new interview with “W”

Fashion designer Tom Ford’s directorial debut A Single Man starring Colin Firth and Julianne Moore will close the AFI Fest in Hollywood tonight. The movie opens on December 11 after making the worldwide rounds of film festivals Venice, Toronto, Tokyo, London and now AFI.

“There is a good deal of my soul, if one has a soul, in that film,” Ford says in an in-depth profile in the December issue of W magazine. “I’ve never shown that side of myself. … “I loved every minute, every phase [of directorial process]. I’m best when I’m in complete control.”

The film presents a day in the life of college professor George (Firth) who struggles to hold his life to­gether after the sudden death months before of his lover of 16 years, Jim (Matthew Goode). Moore portrays George’s friend Charley who longs to rekindle the brief romance the two shared many years before.

“I want to make sure that people don’t think this is a gay film, because it is a universal film,” he says in the article. “We all go through the same things in life—romance, grief, isolation, trying to come to an understanding of what life is about. I wouldn’t want someone not to see it, thinking, Oh, that’s a gay love story. That’s not the core of the film.”

Ford, 48, opens up about some of his struggles in the piece.

“I have a very dark side, a side that has struggled a lot with depression, and I’ve never been one who showed that to the outside world. I think when you say to someone, ‘Good morning. How are you?’ they should say, ‘Great, terrific,’ because everyone struggles in life. The Yves Saint Laurent thing used to drive me nuts—his depressions, his alcoholism, his whatever. Most people have a lot of problems. You can define yourself by them, or you can realize that everyone is going through what you’re going through and you make the best of it and you get on with your life and you don’t necessarily inflict that, because others probably have that too. They’re just not inflicting it on you.”

Two years before leaving Gucci, Ford experienced “a pretty intense midlife crisis,” which happened to coincide with his 40th birthday. “I started to sink emotionally, spiritually. I became a little bit lost. Leaving Gucci, it intensified because I had been able to cling to my job and to my work and to my identity as a successful fashion designer, and all of a sudden that was gone. It forced me to really think, Well, what am I, who am I, what am I about? It took me a bit of time to figure that out. I think this happens to most people in their life if they’re insightful enough to indulge it and to get through to the other side.”

Ford plans to make a film every three or four years. And already back in fashion since the launch of his signature tony men’s collection, in 2007, he is in the process of moving to bigger studio space in London in advance of his re-entry into the women’s arena, most likely for fall 2011. Fashion, he believes, has floundered since he left, “and I don’t mean that that has anything to do with my leaving. I could feel it starting to flounder before I left, which helped me feel good about getting out at the time.”