How champion triathlete Lesley Paterson spent £160,000 to turn WWI novel into ... trends now

Back in 2012, world champion triathlete Lesley Paterson — a pint-sized Scot with an already groaning trophy cabinet — gave an interview to a cycling website in which she admitted there was another gong she would love to get her hands on: an Oscar.

'I want to win an Oscar for best screenplay,' she said. 'That's a lofty goal but —f*** it — I have to have it!'

Amid all the chat about race times and flat tyres and injuries to her metatarsals, it seemed like a mad thing to say. 'It was bananas,' she concedes.

But at the time she had co-written a screenplay, an adaptation of the classic All Quiet On The Western Front, which she had read at school in Stirling.  

Now that film — which has been leaving audiences stunned and deeply moved with its unrelenting portrayal of the horrors of WW1 — is the toast of Hollywood.

Despite it being in German ('which I don't speak,' she admits), despite it breaking all the so-called 'rules' about what makes a blockbuster war movie (the lead character dies, is on the 'wrong' side, and is in no way heroic), this week it received an astonishing nine Oscar nominations — including for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay. News of these came hot on the heels of a staggering 14 Bafta nominations.

This would be a triumph for anyone, but for an industry rookie — well, little wonder Lesley, 42, is practically doing cartwheels. 

It took her 16 gruelling years to get the film made. With no financial backers and no real connections in the industry, she had to fund it herself, from her modest sporting winnings.

At one point she completed a triathlon in Costa Rica with a broken shoulder, so desperate was she for the prize money that would keep the project afloat. 

Keeping herself afloat on that day sounds like utter hell. 'The running and cycling was fine but the swimming was tricky because I had to do the front crawl with only one arm', she tells me.

You get a measure of the woman now rubbing shoulders with Steven Spielberg, being applauded by Daniel Craig, and sitting next to Kate Hudson at industry events when she emails me at what would be 4am in LA. 

'Oh, I get up early,' she says, her can-do attitude shining as much as the California sun.

She's already in her Lycra when we speak, and in the surreal position of trying to source a designer frock for the Oscars while carrying out the 'day job', which is coaching triathletes. 

She laughs at the idea that she might have raced into Tinseltown millionaire's row.

'It doesn't happen like that. It's a very curious business where you break in but you've only got your first gig. 

'We are on the cusp right now but we still have to run a coaching business, so I'm coaching 50 athletes while trying to sort out my dress.'

What was an expert in endurance sport doing launching herself into Hollywood movies in the first place, you might well ask? 

When you hear her story, which warrants a screenplay all of its own, you realise that this project perhaps needed a will of steel to get it to the finishing line.

'I do think that every single skill I had learned in triathlon was used. Much of what I do in sport is about learning to tolerate pain, learning how to push through, handling adversity. 

'My brain just does that now. I've trained it to, like a muscle, and I don't know any other way to be.' 

She tells me that if she does get invited onto the winner's stage, she will dedicate her Oscar to her husband Simon, the love of her life but also her mentor, coach and chief cheerleader.

They met at university in Loughborough when they were in the same cycling club. He has been behind her all the way — literally, sometimes.

'We met during a team cycle and he fell off his bike — probably because he was looking at my arse,' she says.

'I was the only girl and all the guys were vying to be behind me. He got prime position. 

'It was a joke at the time because there was a diamond on my shorts which looked like an arrow when I was in the saddle.'

Simon was studying sport science at the time. He is now a leading sport psychologist, a partner in their coaching business — and a co-writer on All Quiet.

Three writers are credited on the film and Simon isn't among them, but Lesley insists he was very much involved.

'It's a shame he's not credited but we just didn't know that things would turn out like this. If I win, I will be dedicating it to him because none of it would have happened without him.' 

What a heroic team they make, even if the Hollywood execs haven't always known what to do with them. 

Lesley is 5ft 2in, blonde, petite and with a killer six pack; he is 6ft and an academic.

'An awful lot of times we've pitched up and all the questions have been directed at Simon. 

'One executive told me that I shouldn't smile so much because it made me look stupid.'

She is not a woman that should be underestimated because she was clearly one of life's winners from the off. 

She won her first sporting trophies when she played rugby for Stirling County Rugby Club aged seven, when she was the only girl on the team.

By the time she was 14, she had moved into hill running — introduced to

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