Blitz is in cinemas from Friday. Add it to your watchlist. Sir Steve McQueen, 55, has become one of Britain’s most acclaimed film-makers with movies like Hunger, Shame and the Oscar-winning 12 Years a Slave.
Now he’s back with Blitz, set in 1940 at the height of the bombing raids on Britain. It stars Saoirse Ronan as Rita, a factory worker in London whose son George is evacuated from the city. Was television a big influence on you growing up? Where I grew up in Ealing, it was on all the time, like a fireplace.
It was how I was educated: wildlife programmes, documentary programmes, Play for Today ...
everything. British TV, as I grew up, was a library. Did you always want to be a film-maker? When I was in art school, I wanted to be in film school.
When I was in film school, I wanted to be in art school. I was back and forth, really. I was in NYU in 1993 [studying film] and I hated it.
I could only afford to go because I got a scholarship and my uncle lived in Brooklyn. But after three months I left and came back to England and did my own thing. I was more interested in art because it was much more difficult.
What is it you now love so much about film-making? It’s like being in a band, isn’t it? It’s bloody hard work, and things go wrong, but I have fun doing it. Nothing comes easy! But you can get results. What inspired you to make Blitz? I think just being a Londoner! From day one, you’re seeing bombed-out buildings growing up.
And slowly those narratives emerge: .