Paul Greengrass

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This is the B B C.

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Hello, I'm Kirstie Young. Welcome to Desert Island Discs, where every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, the book and the luxury item that they'd want to take with them if they were cast away on a desert island.

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For rights' reasons, the music on these podcast versions is shorter than in the original broadcast. You can find over two thousand more editions to listen to and download on the Desert Island Disc's website.

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My castaway this week is the film director Paul Greengrass, truly a story teller from modern times. His movies are culture shifting in their impact, uniting pace and thrills and threat with a deep seated sense of where the world is now.

Presenter1:05

His block busting Jason Bourne trilogy alone has netted a billion dollars in ticket sales, but, beyond the bone crunching stunts and gut twisting intrigue, lies the repeated theme of willful establishment amorality.

Presenter1:18

Twas ever thus. As a young TV documentary maker at World in Action, he told stories of IRA hunger strikers and the Ku Klux Klan, and filmed in apartheid South Africa and on the streets of Beirut. By the early 2000s, he was directing highly acclaimed television dramas, including The Murder of Stephen Lawrence and Bloody Sunday. By his own admission, he's not much one for the establishment, which might explain why he was kicked out of school at fourteen. He says of his work, I don't want spectacle. I don't want people watching from the outside. I want them to be participants. Drama can take you there in a way that the facts can't. And so, Paul, I wonder that's counterintuitive, really. Why do you think drama can do that?

Paul Greengrass2:01

Well, I think

Paul Greengrass2:02

Cinema does it because you can be immersed in it. You know, I still believe in the

Paul Greengrass2:09

the power of that big screen in the dark room. You know, it had a profound effect on me as a small boy and uh

Paul Greengrass2:18

I've never lost that thrill, the power of it all. I mean, it's a

Paul Greengrass2:23

Turbulent thing to do, of course, and it takes a toll on your life and on your family's lives, for sure.

Paul Greengrass2:29

And of course it's ultimately

Paul Greengrass2:33

rather a puny life'cause you're making something out of sound and light, which is nothing, you know, and you're trying to craft something that has power and power to connect and move people. So it's a

Paul Greengrass2:43

It's a paradox, and that paradox is intoxicating, and I've never lost my love from the very first day I stepped inside a television company to to today.

Presenter2:53

And I mentioned there almost inevitably in the introduction the Bourne franchise, this huge juggernaut that gets millions of bottoms onto so many velvet seats around the world. You've made other movies too, and of course we are going to talk about them, but I wonder

Presenter3:08

Is it surprising for you to find yourself as a blockbuster movie director?

Paul Greengrass3:14

Intensely surprising to me, it was never what I thought I would end up doing.

Paul Greengrass3:21

and it came along and I thought, Oh yeah, I know what to do with this.

Paul Greengrass3:25

Well, I wouldn't only want to do that, and I haven't. But that character spoke to me for sure. I loved the fact that Jason Bourne was a sort of oppositional character. He was opposed to th the system. He you know, he knew they were lying to him and he wanted to find out why. You know, I think if you want to understand

Paul Greengrass3:44

Something of what happened in Britain and America and in the West in the early years of the 2000s.

Paul Greengrass3:50

the fear of the paranoia

Paul Greengrass3:53

I think the Bourne movies give you a pretty good sense of that in a popcorn commercial way, but I think that young people particularly responded because of that and because of the sense that it told the truth at that time.

Presenter4:07

You've spoken about the immersive experience of cinema and sound is incredibly important I would say maybe almost as important as the picture edits in in your movies. Extending that a little is music a a crucial part of your creativity?

Paul Greengrass4:14

Trendancy.

Paul Greengrass4:20

Yes. I mean I've always loved music and I would say sound rather than music alone in films is vital. The work you do with your sound designer and your composer to create something that is a whole experience, that's a vital part of cinema. Certainly the modern cinema. And on that note then, tell me about this first disc.

Paul Greengrass4:41

Well, my first one is The Great Lawrence of Arabia. I've had the privilege of spending my life making television and films. So if I'm on my desert island, I'd like to remember all those wonderful times I've had and also what better way to remember that than to listen to one of the great soundtracks of all time.

Presenter5:31

That was uh the main theme from the original recording of David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia, composed and conducted by Maurice Jarre and performed by the London Philharmonic. Paul Greengrass. The question of what modern audiences will accept must surely be a very current one as a filmmaker, given that in this digital world we are exposed to images and to relentless pace of how we consume those images in a way that human beings have never been before. How do you navigate that as a filmmaker?

Paul Greengrass6:03

Well, I think it's interesting. When I made Born Supremacy, which was the first time I'd ever made a a sort of Hollywood film,

Paul Greengrass6:10

you know, I had a sort of aesthetic of my own, which was in a way, I thought, reaching back to the roots of

Paul Greengrass6:16

British documentary Realism. You know, I liked zoom lenses and

Paul Greengrass6:20

I like to have the camera in a hand, and I like to be very immersive in my way.

Paul Greengrass6:25

I wondered when I went to make a commercial film how that would work.

Paul Greengrass6:29

And uh at first they were, I think, a bit sceptical as to how it was going to work when they saw my rushes. I remember the first time we sat in the theater and I could hear one of the producers in front going, Why does he have to do that with the camera?

Paul Greengrass6:45

But later we when we came to shoot

Paul Greengrass6:49

Born ultimatum, I remember being on the station and seeing for the first time

Paul Greengrass6:55

People filming us filming with their mobile phones.

Paul Greengrass6:58

And that had a huge impact on me because I suddenly realized that what I thought was a quite old fashioned aesthetic actually had become, to my surprise, very contemporary, because particularly young people were used to

Paul Greengrass7:12

capturing images on their mobile phones that were handheld, very r raw and rough, and so they wanted their cinema to reflect that. Yeah.

Presenter7:21

I was thinking of some of your other work, Captain Phillips, United Ninety Three in particular, The Nature of the Feeling of Threat. I mean, that is quite obviously a very good dramatic device, but I wonder why you're interested in it simply as a human being.

Paul Greengrass7:34

Uh

Paul Greengrass7:36

Well, it's a good question.

Paul Greengrass7:39

I mean I don't craft those things.

Paul Greengrass7:42

sort of consciously, if you know what I mean. Yeah. It it reoccurs in in the films I've made again and again, a sort of slow build up and the choreography of conflict, if you want to call it that. I mean, I think I've always um

Presenter7:43

Yeah.

Paul Greengrass7:56

Had a sense of dread about me inside, for sure.

Paul Greengrass8:02

But I think

Paul Greengrass8:04

Ultimately these things go back to your

Paul Greengrass8:07

childhood, you know, I can remember

Paul Greengrass8:10

as a small boy watching Snow White and being absolutely terrified by the the witch, you know.

Paul Greengrass8:17

and the relationship

Paul Greengrass8:19

between the films you make and your experiences.

Paul Greengrass8:23

are never clear until many years later, many years later.

Presenter8:27

Much more on that to come, I think. Um for now tell me about your second disc. We are going to hear the great

Paul Greengrass8:33

B. B. King

Presenter8:34

Why have you chosen us?

Paul Greengrass8:35

Yeah.

Paul Greengrass8:35

Well I listened to and I've always listened a lot to blues music and this particular song reminds me very much of being a young man working at Granada Television in my twenties. That was when I first saw BB King play live up in Manchester and it just reminds me of those years when you're making your way and life seems very rich with possibilities and hearing B.B. King live, that's about as good as it gets.

Speaker 39:06

I've been down hard at me.

Speaker 39:13

Every sister day we met.

Speaker 39:19

I say I've been downhearted, baby.

Speaker 39:26

Episodes today we met.

Speaker 39:29

That's not every

Speaker 39:32

Our love is nothing but the blue woman.

Speaker 39:39

Baby, how blue can you get?

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RAAAAAAA

Presenter9:43

That was B. B. King and How Blue Can You Get. Paul Greengrass, Captain Phillips, your twenty thirteen release, starring Tom Hanks, of course, a movie about a man who spends so much of his life at sea, and your father did, which brings an extra depth, I think, to that movie. Tell me a little bit more about him.

Paul Greengrass10:01

Well, he was a seafarer. I mean, he's still alive. He's very elderly now. He grew up in a very strict Baptist family. They were the strict and particular Baptists, the Lord's peculiar people, as it said over the door of the chapel.

Paul Greengrass10:18

and they were nonconformists. And he rebelled against that. He went to sea. I think that gave him a freedom.

Paul Greengrass10:27

My mother was an only child.

Paul Greengrass10:30

Her mother, I think, was quite a controlling person.

Paul Greengrass10:34

And I think they made this pact. This is my view. I don't know I wasn't there, but I my sense is that they made this pact, unspoken probably, to escape from their families. And they escaped into the seafaring life. And that choice certainly was the defining choice for them, but also I think for all of us, my brothers and sisters and me. And so what was the nature of that relationship that so shaped you?

Paul Greengrass11:04

I think it was a tempestuous marriage. They were each to each other the most important person.

Paul Greengrass11:12

in their lives. I I think that

Paul Greengrass11:16

They were in many ways

Paul Greengrass11:19

ill suited to each other but for this central pact.

Paul Greengrass11:24

Uh in the sense that he was very solitary, she was very gregarious, he's very, you know, introverted, she was highly extroverted, and it it made for these tremendous clashes, of course, when he came back. So that was what we had to live through. But I don't want to paint a false picture. It was a in many ways a great love story. I mean they stayed together, they brought us all up.

Paul Greengrass11:49

And they

Paul Greengrass11:50

went all the way through their lives, and he nursed her so devotedly in in through many years of illness before she died.

Paul Greengrass11:58

But the this collision of opposites

Paul Greengrass12:03

I I think shaped me very greatly because it gave me an insight and I think I I think for all my brothers and sisters we had to make sense of love and conflict together, you know, if I can put it like that.

Paul Greengrass12:14

That's very well put.

Presenter12:15

Uh

Presenter12:16

How was he greeted when he came home?

Paul Greengrass12:18

Well, some of my earliest memories are being packed into a rickety old car and we would go off to wherever it was that he was coming into port and it wouldn't match if it was three in the morning.

Paul Greengrass12:30

We would all be there.

Presenter12:31

Goodness.

Paul Greengrass12:32

To w to to be there.

Presenter12:34

What do you make of that now?

Paul Greengrass12:37

I think it's amazing.

Presenter12:38

Uh

Presenter12:41

We're going to take a break, Paul. We're going to listen to some music. Just tell me a bit about this and why it's pretty clear why you've chosen it.

Paul Greengrass12:49

Below the wind southerly, Kathleen Ferrier is um

Paul Greengrass12:54

It's a great song about the seafaring life.

Paul Greengrass12:57

And it's one of my earliest memories. She was my dad's favorite singer and it speaks to the reality of the seafaring life.

Speaker 313:06

They told me last night there were sheeps in the offing, And I hurried down to the deep rolling sea.

Speaker 313:21

But my eye could not see Where'er there might be The bark that is bare.

Presenter13:43

That was Kathleen Ferrier, singing Blow the Wind Southerly. Paul Greengrass, you went to the movies as a kid. Your dad took you Doctor Jivago. You went to he took you to see Hamlet, aged nine, am I right?

Paul Greengrass13:54

He did, he did. He had a wonderful belief that if it was good, no matter how old you were, you would respond. So as a very young boy he would take me to Shakespeare, to the opera, and I can still remember

Paul Greengrass14:08

Certainly seeing Hamlet, I can remember what seat I was in. I can remember seeing David Warner. I can remember the velvet cape that he wore.

Paul Greengrass14:15

I can remember seeing the sword fight. Uh I just found it absolutely thrilling, intoxicating, pro profound, moving. And and these experiences shape you.

Presenter14:29

You've spoken about Gravesend in Kent, those endless vacant estuary estates hard by the Grey Marshes. To be there and to be you as a teenager in what would then be the late sixties. What did that feel like to you?

Paul Greengrass14:43

It was a very atmospheric place, Gravesend. It's got a particular

Paul Greengrass14:48

Identity

Paul Greengrass14:50

I think I was oddly quite lonely as a child, even though I had many brothers and sisters.

Paul Greengrass14:56

I think I always had trouble fitting in.

Presenter14:59

In the very seat that you are sitting in, I spoke to Tom Hanks about almost exactly what you're describing, which is in the middle of a big, sometimes very complex, family situation, through movies and through music, he had what was almost for him a sort of intense sensory experience that gave him connection. That rings a bell, does it?

Paul Greengrass15:19

That rings. Oh, completely. And I think that in my case, and I think this is at the heart of w why you want to make cinema you have these experiences when you're very young. So you have an understanding of conflict I think and then and and how it builds and and what that's about.

Paul Greengrass15:41

And then you go to the cinema and you see it reflected.

Paul Greengrass15:46

with the most sublime artistry and the s the most sublime truthfulness. And then later in life when you get to try and make your own pieces of work,

Paul Greengrass15:56

You're really trying to replicate the experiences that you had when you're in a dark room on your own.

Paul Greengrass16:03

Watching cinema, and it becomes

Paul Greengrass16:06

A sort of Sisyphian labour, because you're struggling to do something that no matter what you do.

Paul Greengrass16:12

can never be as pure or as intense as what you experience as a child. I think it's true that film making pitilessly exposes all your flaws as a human being, and you're always haunted

Paul Greengrass16:26

When you finish them, by the fact that it never quite was what you hoped it would be, and that

Paul Greengrass16:32

Inner demon is what drives you on, but it's also

Paul Greengrass16:36

The inner

Paul Greengrass16:38

promise that that lures you on.

Presenter16:40

Let's comfort you then with some great music. Tell me about this. What's your fourth one?

Paul Greengrass16:46

Well, this is uh The Beatles. Couldn't possibly be on a desert island without some some Beatles music because it's run through my life like an arrow.

Paul Greengrass16:55

And it reminds me of my brothers and sisters and particularly of my older sister who sadly died about ten years ago. I can absolutely remember her coming back in tears after seeing the Beatles in a concert saying, John touched me and then refusing to wash her hands for about four weeks, sending my mother absolutely demented. So this just reminds me of the explosion of the new.

Speaker 317:23

Bye.

Speaker 317:29

Well she was just seventeen.

Speaker 317:32

Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 317:36

And the way she looked was way beyond compare

Speaker 317:41

So how could I know?

Speaker 317:44

And if we're another

Speaker 317:47

I saw it.

Speaker 317:50

Yeah.

Speaker 317:53

Well she

Presenter17:56

That was the Beatles I saw as standing there. So tell me, Paul Greengrass, why did you get kicked out of Gravesend Grammar School?

Paul Greengrass18:03

Um, I think you could probably sum it up with being an absolutely huge pain in the ass. I mean, when I look back now, they must have been tearing their hair out and they couldn't find a school that I would could go to, you know. I was pretty much falling between the cracks. And then I ended up

Paul Greengrass18:21

I don't know how.

Paul Greengrass18:22

having an interview with a a man called Doctor Hinton, who was the headmaster of Seven Oaks School, which was outwardly a conventional private school.

Paul Greengrass18:31

What I didn't know then was it had this reputation at that time for being brilliantly

Paul Greengrass18:37

innovative in its teaching, particularly in the arts. And I remember going in to see him and he was a very calm person and

Paul Greengrass18:47

He said, I think you should come here. I think it would suit you. I don't know how the

Paul Greengrass18:52

the business'cause my parents couldn't have afforded to have sent me there. And when I say that my school career was not very very good, it wasn't, but I owe everything to that school.

Paul Greengrass19:04

I really do.

Presenter19:05

And it was in the The art block at Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Paul Greengrass19:08

Yeah.

Paul Greengrass19:10

You made a

Paul Greengrass19:11

The art room was a place where you could go and almost live. I mean, I used to be there till very late at night. And that was where one day I remember being in the back they had a little room at the back and I found in there

Paul Greengrass19:27

an old Bolex sixteen mil camera that was sort of gathering dust in a drawer, as I recall.

Paul Greengrass19:33

And uh

Paul Greengrass19:35

I came out and pestered them to get me some film. And we're together with a friend. We made a little film with some of the life dolls that you used to draw and some Indian ink and some scissors and we made a little horror film. It was a sort of uh

Paul Greengrass19:53

Teenage angst Bunuel mixed with intense sexual fantasies and uh and

Paul Greengrass20:02

I remember it to this day as just a defining moment of my life because.

Paul Greengrass20:08

The entire experience, all the anxieties I had in life, all my difficulties to fit in, disappeared and I became absorbed in writing this whatever scenario it was and setting the angle poise lights because we didn't have any proper lights and hearing the film running across the sprockets. And I just found it the most beautiful and peaceful thing that I'd ever done in my entire life. Paul Greengrass, let's have some music. Tell me about this. It's your fifth.

Paul Greengrass20:38

We're going to hear Fairport Convention meet on the ledge and this reminds me very much of being in the art room. We used to have a record player and this so reminds me of being a teenager, of finding my way, realizing that there were things in life that worked for me and there was a place where I could fit in.

Speaker 321:02

Oh bless

Speaker 321:05

Gonna be all my land

Speaker 321:09

When the time is up, I'm gonna be your friend.

Speaker 321:15

Feet on the leg

Speaker 321:18

Gonna be long delay.

Speaker 321:22

If you really feel it

Speaker 321:25

It all comes from your head.

Presenter21:32

Meet on the Ledge, Fairport Convention. So, Paul Greengrass, you ended up at World in Action. It was at the time this really a groundbreaking television programme. It was made by Granada T V, described as one part documentary realism, one part radical journalism, one part politics by you. Um was it populated exclusively by cockshore lefties?

Paul Greengrass21:54

Not really. I mean, there was a I think the key thing about World in Action and the key thing about Granada was it was a non metropolitan television station. And the ethos of the company was that we were not to be like the BBC. We were to be outsiders.

Presenter21:55

But yeah

Paul Greengrass22:10

I remember very early on getting in the lift and I was just a young researcher I'd just joined and

Paul Greengrass22:17

Suddenly David Plawright, who ran the company.

Paul Greengrass22:20

Getting in the lift, and of immediately I began to perspire very heavily at being in close proximity to a boss,'cause, you know, that was unbelievable. Anyway, as we got to my floor, you know, the door opened. He said, You're the new researcher. I said, Yes. He said, Your job's to make trouble. That was it.

Presenter22:38

I mean, amazing. Um, it would be fair to say that you had something of a personal epiphany by the time you hit thirty. What was going on in your head at the time?

Paul Greengrass22:47

Well, I'd been at Granada for ten years. I had learnt the language of documentary filmmaking, but I had a secret desire to make films, movies. And Film Four had then started. David Rose, who ran Film Four, was a great and visionary man, and he had a belief that there had to be new voices in there. And I was very lucky to be one of those.

Presenter23:10

So the film that you got to make then was resurrected. That was in 1989. It took a lot of effort on your part, but it pretty much came and went, as as films so often do.

Paul Greengrass23:17

And so often.

Presenter23:18

You were a jobbing T V drama director in nineteen ninety eight you then made The Theory of Flight that starred Helena Bonham Carter and Kennis Brenner, whatever happened to them. And it was an experience that crushed you, you once said. So I wonder what it taught you.

Paul Greengrass23:21

Yeah.

Paul Greengrass23:27

And can I

Presenter23:34

I hadn't found my voice as

Paul Greengrass23:36

Stop.

Presenter23:36

Yeah.

Paul Greengrass23:36

Yeah.

Presenter23:36

Bring it.

Paul Greengrass23:36

It's okay.

Presenter23:36

Uh

Paul Greengrass23:36

Yeah.

Presenter23:36

Yeah.

Paul Greengrass23:36

I don't think I had a point of view at all on the material and I should have done and it

Paul Greengrass23:42

It did crush me. I n I nearly thought about giving up. But oddly

Paul Greengrass23:46

It was the best thing for me because you learn from your mistakes so much more than anything that goes right, and it gave me the the steel, I think, that

Paul Greengrass23:56

If I was going to carry on

Paul Greengrass23:58

I was going to tell my stories my way

Paul Greengrass24:03

I was going to control them entirely and never compromise. And I think that's when you become a filmmaker, not a shooter, if I can put it that way. And I was lucky enough to work with a close friend of mine, Mark Redhead, with my next film, which is the Stephen Lawrence film. And he

Paul Greengrass24:21

demanded of me that I'd be true to myself. And the most important thing in filmmaking is to have a voice, to have a film that only you can tell, and arrange the pieces that reveal the truths as you see them. Let's have some more music. Tell me what we're going to hear now.

Paul Greengrass24:39

Well, on my desert island, I would like to have some opera. I've always loved opera. My dad took me to opera when I was very young. And my favourite opera is Magic Flute. I think it's one of the most sublime pieces of art. And of course, this great life lived by these humans under the conflict of Sorastra and Queen of the Night. I relate to that. How do you make your way under that? And I want to listen to the duet between Papageno and Papagaino because it's a silly folk song, but it reminds you of the joy of humanity and what it is to be alive.

Paul Greengrass25:59

Who's your liberty?

Paul Greengrass26:01

Even

Paul Greengrass26:19

Uh

Presenter26:23

The Papageno-Papagena duet from Mozart's Magic Flute with Gottfried Hornink, Janet Perry and the Berlin Philharmonic. And the conductor was Herbert von Karrayan. Paul Greengrass It was the drama The Merger of Stephen Lawrence that won you your first BAFTA. That was in 1999. That was followed by Bloody Sunday in 2002. It won prizes at both Berlin and the Sundance Film Festivals.

Presenter26:46

in making these stories about what are profound tragedies in the middle of real people's lives. You you've done it too with United Ninety Three, which is the movie you made about one of the planes that went down on the day of nine eleven. Everybody died.

Presenter27:05

To sit with um Stephen Lawrence's mum and dad, to sit with the families or the survivors of Bloody Sunday and to watch your film with them. Can you explain what that is like?

Speaker 427:10

Mm-hmm.

Paul Greengrass27:18

But you feel that

Paul Greengrass27:20

Enormous responsibility, and you hope that you've discharged that responsibility well.

Paul Greengrass27:29

And that you've told the truth. I remember very clearly showing Doreen Lawrence that film and I said to her before we went in, listen, it's going to be quite difficult because there is a scene, you know, where obviously where we show, I mean, we discussed it in advance, but I said, I just want to remind you that we're going to see a character called Stephen, you know, in a desperate situation. I hope that's okay. And she fixed me with a most steely look and said, There's nothing that you can show that will be the remotest bit like what I experienced. And so don't be sensitive on my account. It's people out there that have to understand the truth. And that you see time and time and time again. It's us that don't want to see the truth. It's us for whom these stories are too soon. It's us who don't want to be confronted with the details. Now that's not to say that sensitivity and discretion isn't a part of it.

Paul Greengrass28:27

But

Paul Greengrass28:28

We should never forget that this is part of our world and those who are the victims.

Paul Greengrass28:34

Demand to be heard, always, always, always.

Presenter28:37

So

Paul Greengrass28:38

More music, Paul Green Yes, um we're gonna listen

Presenter28:39

Yeah.

Paul Greengrass28:40

Let's see here.

Paul Greengrass28:41

Seventh disc

Presenter28:41

Uh

Paul Greengrass28:41

Uh

Paul Greengrass28:43

Well, I've always listened to a lot of Bruce Springsteen all my adult life since he arrived in the early mid-70s. And this particular song has a very special meaning for me. It reminds me of a night my wife and I went to see him on this particular tour and he played this song and it's always seemed to me to sum up marriage long-standing relationships and I used this song at our wedding and it speaks to the truths of love and a life shared with my wife Jana.

Speaker 329:18

There's a beautiful river

Speaker 329:21

The valley ahead

Speaker 329:24

There'neath the oak's bough

Speaker 329:27

Some will be aware.

Speaker 329:30

Should we lose each other?

Speaker 329:34

In the evening tree.

Paul Greengrass29:34

E

Speaker 329:37

I'll wait for you and should I fall behind Will you wait for me?

Speaker 329:43

I'll wait for you and should I fall behind Will you wait for me?

Presenter29:43

We

Speaker 329:50

Wait for you and should I fall behind? Will you wait for me?

Presenter29:59

That was Bruce Bringstein with the live version of If I Should Fall. Paul Greengrass. Filmmaking, of course, is a highly collaborative process. Can you give me a sense of just what it feels like to sit atop this massive organizational machine? You know, you have hundreds of extras, you've got multiple cameras, you've got stunt coordinators, and there you are in charge.

Paul Greengrass30:21

Uh

Paul Greengrass30:23

It's important not to be frightened of it. It's important not to look down. You have to have a certain temperament, I think, and a certain ego, probably.

Paul Greengrass30:33

Well, let's be honest, frankly, yes. It's many ways.

Paul Greengrass30:41

It's the same job that my dad did.

Paul Greengrass30:43

You set sail on a long voyage.

Paul Greengrass30:46

You have an image of where you want to get to and your job as the director is to get the cargo to port safely.

Presenter30:53

Like your father, you have five children. Like your father, you go away on these long journeys for long stretches of time. How do you guard against becoming too self contained or too emotionally distant when you've been away and had these int intense experiences elsewhere that have shaped you?

Presenter31:10

Uh

Paul Greengrass31:10

Well, it's always a challenge for me. I definitely have a an ability to become heavily internalized. I think that comes from my childhood, you know, so I'm outwardly functioning but but inwardly

Presenter31:23

Mm.

Paul Greengrass31:25

Alone. I think it's part of the director's syndrome. You know, when I said earlier you place yourself in places that sort of pitilessly expose you, that's the psychological drama of doing the job, I think. But I have a a wife, Jonah, who has always understood what that's about instinctively and has taught me the meaning of happiness. That's what's grounded me that and my children.

Presenter31:55

Let's hear, then, your final piece, your final choice today.

Paul Greengrass31:58

Well, Bob Dylan is like the Beatles, you know, an arrow through my musical life.

Paul Greengrass32:06

And I would certainly, if I was on my desert island, think a lot about my children, and this is a song that he wrote that I think is a perfect song for a father to to his children.

Speaker 432:19

May God bless and keep you always. May your wishes all come true.

Speaker 432:26

May you always do for others and let others do for you.

Speaker 432:39

And you mail the letter to the stars

Speaker 432:43

Climb on every rung and there you stay.

Speaker 432:52

Forever young.

Presenter33:01

For your children, Paul Greengrass. That was Bob Dylan with Forever Young. It's time now for me to give you the books. You get the Bible, you get the complete works of Shakespeare, and you get to take another book along with them. What's it going to be?

Paul Greengrass33:14

Well, my book is A Hundred Years of Crystal Palace Kidnapping Club by

Presenter33:20

Actual sandwiches.

Paul Greengrass33:22

Exactly, because uh I've been watching the palace for about fifty years. Traumatic time for you then. It'll give me endless evenings of of joy.

Presenter33:36

It'll give

Presenter33:39

That is your book, then, and your luxury.

Paul Greengrass33:41

My luxury will be to take my guitar, and one of the joys of being on a desert island, if I can have a few song books too, is I'll get the time to sit and get a few songs, learn all the way through as opposed to the tiny fragments, and that'll uh entertain me while I wait to be rescued.

Presenter33:58

And a single disk to save from your A.

Paul Greengrass34:01

Oh, I would take uh the Bruce Springsteen because it has so many very, very happy memories.

Presenter34:07

It's yours, Paul Greengrass. Thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Paul Greengrass34:12

Thank you for having me.

Presenter34:12

Thank you.

Presenter34:25

I hope you enjoyed this edition of Desert Island Discs. You'll find more interviews with film directors including Alan Parker, Mike Lee, Gorinda Chada and John Houston at bbc.co.uk Desert Island Discs.

Paul Greengrass35:00

This is the BBC.