Steve McQueen explains why ‘Blitz’ is ‘very different’ from other WW2 movies

Steve McQueen’s journey to blitz began with a single image.

Though the gripping World War II drama is the 12 Years a Slave filmmaker’s largest-scale movie to date, it all sprang out of inspiration from one intimate, unshakeable photo that McQueen couldn’t get out of his head. “It was a photograph of this boy standing on the railway station, a Black child ready to be evacuated,” the director tells Entertainment Weekly. “That was it, really. This innocent, cute, sweet boy in this very unstable landscape. And I wanted to know his story and see that world through his eyes.”

The film stars newcomer Elliott Heffernan as George, a biracial young boy lost in the tumult of war-torn London as he tries to reunite with his mother Rita (Saoirse Ronan). In stark contrast to the overwhelming whiteness and male-dominated perspective of most World War II movies of past and present, blitz focuses on the women, immigrants, and people of color who upheld English society during the war. McQueen discusses his inspirations, the casting process, and building a more accurate vision of wartime London in a conversation with Entertainment Weekly.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Why did you want to tell the story of blitz at this particular moment?

STEVE MCQUEEN: The seed was planted a long, long time ago. I was a war artist in 2003, in the war zone, and blah blah blah. But I suppose I was trying to get some angle, some kind of idea on the British identity because we put a lot on the Blitz, as far as Blitz spirit and who we are as a nation. And I really wanted to investigate that. I really wanted to unpeel that, but also, I wanted to look at the landscape through a child’s eyes.

What we discovered when we were doing the research is that people weren’t just fighting the enemy, the Nazis — we were also fighting ourselves. And I think that it still goes on today. So it’s this journey of discovery for this young boy and seeing the world through his eyes. It’s kind of like, ‘What are we doing?’ It was kind of urgent then. It’s even more urgent now because it seems, unfortunately, the world is on fire.

How did personal family experiences shape the film?

The initial conversation with Saoirse was so beautiful because she was talking about her mother and their relationship, and the tightness of that bond. It really kind of stirred me in a way because she was very lucky to have that in contact with her mom. I never did. My mother was always the authority. And I thought that how Saoirse pulled from that relationship into the work with Elliott was so wonderful. It was real.

How did you find Elliott to fill the role of George?

You write something, and then you put the script down and go, “Okay, not bad. Oh my goodness gracious, we’ve got to find a kid! Does a kid like George actually exist?” So we cast the net broad and wide. And then Elliott’s tape came in, and there was just a real stillness in him in his eyes. And it’s like that kind of photograph or that image you have on a wall, where you look at that image, and you’re going left, and you’re going right, and you think you understand it, or even if you don’t You don’t understand it, you want to understand it.

He had a sort of silent movie quality to him because you wanted to know him or understand him, or you thought you did. So basically, he grabbed you. And I just love that stillness in him as a child. There’s a maturity in him, but also just a real empathy. You had a real empathy towards him.

How did the costumes and production design help recreate 1940s London?

Working with Adam Stockhausen on the production design and then Jacqueline Durran on the costume design was extraordinary. As a double act, they are pretty incredible. I had a conversation with Adam because I wanted real sets. I wanted a situation of depth. The quality of green screen or blue screen — I mean, that would make me fall asleep, and I think the actors react to the environment. That’s how I think you get the best performances, depth, texture. And Adam did such an amazing job with everything, like the Café de Paris and the flooded tube station. And with Jacqueline, it was always detailed tweed or cloth. It is so interestingly meticulous and fascinating because you’ll see the clothes in the movie and you get a real perspective on London at that time. It is not just a uniform; it is people who make choices.

As you were making this movie, did you feel that you were intentionally creating it in conversation with other depictions of this war in British or American films?

No, I really wasn’t thinking of any other sort of depictions in movies because I don’t really start there — I mean, I’m much more interested in real life. I’m more interested in life than movies, to be honest. Doing the research was so fantastic because it is a blank piece of paper. And then, when you do the research, then you can fill the canvas. So, my reference points have never been other movies. It’s always been what one can find in real life because it’s much more interesting

So therefore, when we have our movie, it’s, of course, very different from movies made at that time about the Blitz. I would say it’s revelationary — the images in this picture, one has never seen in cinema before. I mean, you have images of women who were the backbone, emotionally and physically, of the country. They were looking after the elderly parents. They were evacuating their children as well as working in an ammunition factory. They were the frontline. And the fact that hasn’t been depicted before in cinema in this way is kind of weird because that’s the other half of the story. It isn’t just men in khakis fighting a war somewhere in France. The emotional support and the physical toll of what they were doing, all these things that were maintained, it’s pretty amazing.

And then all these images of Mickey Davies and all these characters and the multiculturalism of London, this is all interesting. And I have no idea why all these aspects weren’t ever in a movie before because that wasn’t my focus. My focus was, how do I make an exciting picture, which can depict a period of time that has never been seen before? And the landscape was epic. It’s a real breadth of a narrative.

blitz is now playing in select theaters and streaming on Apple TV+.

Want more movie news? Sign up for Entertainment Weekly’s free newsletter to get the latest trailers, celebrity interviews, film reviews, and more.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.