Laura Hastings-Smith (Hunger) Interview

Laura Hastings-Smith was a producer on Hunger, artist Steve McQueen’s remarkable directorial debut about the blanket protest and hunger strike in maze prison in 1981. The film airs on Channel 4 this autumn.

Here, she reveals what it was like to work on such a landmark project, how some of the brutal elements of the film were harrowing to make, and why Michael Fassbender’s depiction of Bobby Sands went way beyond the normal requirements of an actor.

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What were the origins of Hunger? It was Steve McQueen who came up with the idea, wasn’t it?

Yeah. What happened was Channel 4’s commissioning editor Jan Younghusband asked Steve into the Channel and said that she wanted to make a film with him. He was interested, so he went and had a think about what he wanted to do. He explored a number of ideas, and eventually he decided he wanted to make a film about what it might have been like to be in the Maze Prison around the time of the 1981 Hunger Strike. He was the one who had the passion to make a film about this subject.

You came on board after that, then?

I came on board a few years later, when there was a draft script that Enda Walsh had written with Steve McQueen, which was extraordinary. I was aware of some of Steve’s work, and was really excited to be working with him.

Were you concerned at all about working with someone who’d never directed before?

Not at all. I’d done quite a lot of work before with people who were very established in one field but moving across into another, whether it be documentary to drama, or photography to film. So the idea of working with someone as they crossed from art film to feature film was really exciting. Obviously it’s a challenge, but I welcomed it.

What sort of research did Steve and Enda do for the script? Who did they speak to?

The idea was to meet as wide a range of people as possible. There were several trips to Northern Ireland, and Enda and Steve had meeting after meeting where they sat and listened and asked questions to the widest range of people, from priests to ex-prisoners to prison officers, family members, orderlies. They met a lot of people who had experience of the Maze around the time of the 1981 Hunger Strike and heard their stories. And of course there’s a lot of archive documentaries and news footage that was looked at, and books that were read.

The hunger strikes were an extraordinary event that sort of feel as though they were subsequently expunged from our collective memory. Do you think they were a little bit forgotten about over the years?

That was certainly what Steve felt. The film came out the year after the 25th anniversary of the end of the hunger strikes, and I think Steve felt that it had been almost forgotten. It certainly wasn’t marked in any major way in England. It was such an extraordinary and pivotal event in our recent history that it’s really strange that it’s faded in the way that it has. Especially when it has so much to say about contemporary situations around the world. It’s very relevant.

That’s right. The brutality brings to mind Apartheid South Africa or Guantanamo Bay. It’s odd to think that such things went on in this country, relatively recently. Did you encounter any hostility from people unwilling to believe your portrayal?

There were people who were hostile to the film. Very often they were people who hadn’t actually seen the film. Their fears and assumptions as to what the film would be like prevented them from actually seeing it. It’s not for everyone. I understand that feelings run deep, people have a whole range of experiences, and for a lot of people the subject is extremely painful and very real. But I think if a lot of those people had seen the film, they might have been pleasantly surprised. I don’t believe the film is one-sided.

There were ten hunger strikers who died in the protest. Why do we, and why does the film, focus so much attention on Bobby Sands?

We’ve always said that it’s not a film about Bobby Sands, it’s about those in the Maze prison around the time of the hunger strike. Obviously it’s difficult to ignore Bobby Sands, because he was a central figure to the hunger strike coming about, and the fact that it was staggered, with the hunger strikers all starting at different times. Whatever you feel about him, and whether he was right or wrong, he clearly was an incredibly charismatic, very clear-minded and focused character. You’ll get characters like that through history, and they’re fascinating to look at. How is it that someone can be so clear and so determined to see something like that through? And, rightly or wrongly, to lead other men to do it as well. It’s a question that’s also very relevant now, for our times. We need to understand people who are willing to die for their cause. But you don’t meet him until 35 minutes into the film, and I do think that the film is about a lot of other people too. It’s about the prison officer, the orderly, the new prisoner, the riot officer. There are a range of characters who take on the baton, and the camera observes them for a while.

Steve initially had the idea of making this as a silent film, and the film is mostly very light on dialogue. What was the idea behind that?

He’s very clever at getting people to focus on what it might have felt like to be there. He wanted people, in the watching of the film, to be very present. I think that’s why it has such an impact. It’s not about ‘he said this and she did that, then he said this…’ It’s about that physicalness of being there, and what it does to each of those human beings within that place. And somehow, by just giving people the time to look and think and feel, rather than get caught up in dialogue, it was a way to get people to experience what it must have been like. It gets you to look again at your preconceptions, or helps you empathise more with the characters.

Then you’ve got this extraordinary scene in the middle of the film – a conversation between Sands and the priest – about the rights and wrongs of his proposed hunger strike. That involves a 17-minute sequence that was filmed in one take. It’s an extraordinary achievement, isn’t it?

Yeah, nothing like that has been done before. For Liam Cunningham (the priest) and Michael Fassbinder (Bobby Sands), it is a real tour de force. I guess, in a way, it was like theatre. They just rehearsed it over and over. It’s an extraordinary performance from both of them.

Were you on set when that scene was filmed?

Yeah. There was an absolutely remarkable atmosphere. We were shooting in Belfast, all of the actors apart from Michael and Liam were from Belfast. It was an extraordinary experience every day on set, but being there for that scene was incredible. The writing was incredible. It felt quite important at the time.

What’s been the reaction of the people of Northern Ireland towards the film?

Well, obviously mixed. But I’d say, overall, incredibly open and welcoming. We had the UK Premiere of the film in Belfast, and that was an incredibly emotional and extraordinary experience. There was a feeling that it was time to look back at that moment in history, and that it had been dealt with in a mature and deep and serious way. I think people were pleased that a serious piece of film-making had taken place. And I don’t think it was a film that we would have been able to make ten years ago. I don’t think people would have been ready for it then. So I think it is a real marker as to how much things have moved on. It’s an important piece of history, but hopefully it’s history.

It’s a beautiful but brutal film to watch. Is making a film like that a traumatic experience?

It does almost feel like a body blow when you watch it, which is strange, because compared to so many films, it’s not that violent. The key is, in the riot scene, that’s shot as one piece – there is actually one cut in there, but it’s basically one shot, it goes on for three-and-a-half minutes. And the camera is in the middle of the action. So you’re placed right in the middle of this horrendous scene – the body searches, the brutal movement of prisoners – that actually happened. I think that’s one of the reasons why it feels as brutal as it does. When we filmed the riot scene, that was very emotional, and we were all a bit shocked and churned up by it, for sure. And obviously when Michael lost the weight and came back for the second part of the shoot, that was a very serious eight days’ filming. There wasn’t a lot of banter on set. It was very professional and respectful of Michael and what he had done, so everybody wanted to do their best. It was emotionally exhausting, particularly that final third of the film. Shooting that was really tough. But it doesn’t linger as it is ultimately all about the finished film and how people respond to that.

Michael’s weight loss was an extraordinary length to go to for his role. Were you concerned about him?

We got guidance and a nutritionist, and we arranged regular health checks. I had all the medical reports, and we talked to him all the time. It was all monitored and relatively safe. His BMI went down to 18, which obviously is underweight, but you also have to remember that he only hit that weight for eight days, and then he could start to put the weight back on. Yes, it was shocking, and it took incredible discipline for him to do it, but it wasn’t unsafe. My job was just to be sure that it was done in the right way, and that he was happy with it and all the checks were being done. I guess, as the Producer, I tried to have a rational approach to Michael’s weight loss because I was involved in the safety side, but it did feel emotional seeing him again at the reduced weight just before filming the final part of the film. It was the discipline and professionalism that Michael exhibited that was so astonishing. We were so grateful to him for that, and for his astonishing performance.