Up-and-coming British director has created an delishly dark thriller in Harry Brown, and what's more he got to work with one of the greatest British actors of all time: Sir Michael Caine. Here's what he had to say about it all...

MV: What is your hope for the film in Britain?

Daniel Barber: I think it does make important social comment and I hope that it inspires some sort of a conversation – amongst audiences initially and then leads to a proper conversation in our society about what we’re going to do with what is probably going to become a lost generation if we’re not careful. That’s not a Daily Mail headline or any of that crap… it’s a reality. Having spent quite a bit of time meeting a lot of kids on estates during my research for the film it’s a sorry situation and we’re not doing anything about it. The film speaks about that. Now, you can say that it’s entertainment, which it is. But it does dramatise a serious reality in our country at the moment. Hopefully, because it’s a dramatisation and an entertainment it will attract more people to see it. Nobody would watch a documentary on the subject apart from some middle-class people from Hampstead, which is great for the Guardian readers, but you need to get out there and speak to normal people.


MV: What do you think has created this lost generation and, by extension, what do they think has?

Daniel Barber: My personal view on it is that there are different factors. One is the ease with which young people can connect with each other now, and can get information from the Internet, from television and so on. It’s so very quick. They can see horrendous things happening. People put something on the Internet which is really nasty… maybe they’ll beat somebody up and film it on their phone and put it on the Internet – there’s a community of people who like to look at things like that. But that leads to people wanting to beat up someone nastier and better because that means you’re taken more seriously in your gang or your area. Education is not regarded as a very high priority at the moment because people don’t think it’s that important.

The idea that you should have an education to better yourself, and to get a job, is not seen as the most serious route-way. It’s about living your life, being seen to be a serious person by your peers, which might be in a very violent way. You might have to earn your stripes, as it were, by knifing someone or beating someone up. That’s a reality. It sounds like a fantasy but it’s not. Going to school is seen as not a great thing to do. It’s too old fashioned, or it’s for tossers. You just hang out, do drugs and not do a great deal.

So you’ve got information, the kind of stuff they can put about that inspires them to do stuff; you’ve then got a lack of education, and then – what I saw – a shit home life… a mother or father who’s an alcoholic or a drug addict. Again, that sounds like something you could write in a magazine but it’s actually the truth. Or there’s people who live on benefit and themselves, as parents, are uninspired to get their kids to do anything – they don’t want to take responsibility for their kids or have anything to do with them.

They’re not like you or I… I have a son and all I care about is him, whether it’s how he’s doing at school or what he’s going to do when he’s older. I’m very lucky, I had nice parents and a good education. But that’s not what the situation is now. These kids don’t want to learn a trade, they probably do commit crime, they end up going to prison, which is a great school for learning how to be a criminal. That’s not a good idea. But there’s a whole swathe of society that just wants to put them in prison where they really learn how to be bad.


MV: So, what’s the answer?

Daniel Barber: It’s got to be us encouraging them and trying to get them into some sort of education to help them understand what they can do with it and how they can better themselves. That also means that people in successful companies need to take the lead and going: “Right, I’m going to help a group of kids and do something about this. I’m going to show them what they can achieve.” I don’t know what else to suggest. I’m sure if you go and ask a politician they’ll come up with some clever answer that doesn’t mean anything and is more about them not wanting to commit to anything because they just want to get themselves elected.


MV: By extension of that, there’s also no discipline now and a lack of respect. Your film touches on this and shows how powerless the police are…

Daniel Barber: The film is not about making the police out to be idiots at all. I haven’t done that and it’s not the case anyway. The police, for the most part, are trying to do something but there’s so much red tape. And in any case, they’re not social workers. They can go out and stop someone beating someone up and they try to follow up. But it’s miserable, thankless work. Everyone knows the system… the kids know how to work it and the film shows that as well. We had some really serious high-ranking police advisors on this film because I was keen to be as realistic as possible, not just from a procedural point of view but from a day-to-day reality. But they said: “This is absolutely what goes on, yes that’s how they speak to us, they know the system and there’s nothing we can do…” Some of the stories they told me are so horrendous that I didn’t believe it at first.


MV: Do you have any examples?

Daniel Barber: There was a really nice woman, actually, who is a detective inspector. Emily [Mortimer] spent two or three weeks shadowing her and watching what she did, and learning how she went about things and dealt with situations. But this woman came to the set one day and didn’t look really happy. I asked her if everything was alright and she said: “I just had a really bad morning.” So, I asked what she’d been doing and she replied: “I’ve been dealing with this case that’s really upset me. A boy bought some drugs off a gang and he owed them £15 for a bag of weed or something. But he hadn’t paid them back, they wanted their money, so anyway they basically went to the house where he lived and burned it down. He wasn’t there, the boy, but his mother and sister were and they died in the fire.” It’s really upsetting.

And yet the police have to deal with that all the time. But they are human beings and the way they get treated and dealt with is disgusting. It’s a very cheap, cheap shot indeed if people look at this film and dismiss it as a cheap entertainment and therefore not born of reality. It really, really, really is and people would be really stupid to do that.


MV: How easy was it to persuade Michael Caine to come out of “retirement”? Because he keeps insisting he’s retired…

Daniel Barber: Really easy… but he loved the part. I think he’s at that age where he doesn’t need to work anymore and he picks and chooses very carefully what he does. But I think he wants to put something back. He is a Briton, and he’s one of our great Britons, and everybody loves him because he’s a real man of the people. He came from a very poor background and has never said how clever he was. He’s just worked, worked, worked… but now he’s upset. He comes from Elephant & Castle, which is where we filmed Harry Brown, and he sees the way his area is now and the way the gangs roam around and is worried. It’s not going to affect him because he lives in a very beautiful place, but it doesn’t mean he’s lost touch and I think he’d like there to be a conversation about what’s going on something can happen. He certainly didn’t make this for the money.


MV: Did he deliver any anecdotes or knowledge that you can now take forward as a director?

Daniel Barber: Yeah, I’ve always believed that anyone can add anything to the process, whichever department they work in. I work with a really good team of people. I have a grip that I use all the time and a cameraman, a gaffer and sound people. All of them can come up to me and query things. But he’s very much like that as well. It doesn’t matter who you are, or where you come from… He said to me: “I’ll come up with a lot of ideas, most of which are shit, but you’ll have to pick out the occasional diamond that will be in there. But at the end of the day, you’re the boss and I’ll do what you’ll tell me to do.”

There are loads of anecdotes.... But he’s really wonderful like that. My boy came to the set one day and he loves The Italian Job, so he actually told Michael this and he replied: “Oh, you like the bit where I go, ‘I only told you to blow the bloody doors off’!” Everyone was buzzing afterwards that he actually said it for us because we’re all movie fans and we’re all in awe of him. He is such an amazing actor.

Interview by Rob Carnevale

You can read our Harry Brown review HERE or find more great interviews HERE.