Pray God you can cope. I stand outside this woman's work, this woman's world. It's hard for a man. Now his part is over. Now starts the craft of the father. I know you have a little life in you yet. I know you have a lot of strength left. I should be crying, but I just can't let it show. I should be hoping, but I can't stop thinking of all the things I should have said that I never said. All the things we should have done, though we never did. All the things I should have given, but I didn't. These are the lyrics to the moving and profound song A Woman's Work by Kate Bush. I'm Dr. Maria Kempinska, and this is Your Mind Matters. And for those of you who've listened before, you'll know that I choose a song that echoes the theme of this program, and the song A Woman's Work does just that. In 1934, C.G. Jung said about women in Europe, 'The modern woman stands before a great cultural task, which means perhaps the beginning of a new era.' Esther Harding said that the strength of womanhood is stronger than any male adaption, and how a woman who is also— who is a woman from the crown of her head to the tip of her toe can afford to be masculine, just as a man who is sure of his masculinity can afford to be tender and patient like a woman. She continued, if any human being is to reach full maturity, both the masculine and feminine sides of the personality must be brought up into consciousness. More than 100 years ago, Tony Wolff came up with a model that describes the essence of women according to 4 distinct psych— structural psychological forms or types. The mother archetype represents the woman's natural capacity and numinous power to conceive, give birth, sustain, and renew life. The Amazon archetype is independent, self-contained in a positive sense, and highly capable of making her way in the world and also into the territory traditionally occupied by men. The Hetaria archetype is a companion to man, related to the personal psychology of the man as well as to her children and friends. Hetaria is the root of the word hetare, mistress or lover. The medial archetype is the one we're focusing on today. She is highly intuitive and has a strong connection to the collective unconscious. Her qualities may find expression in the spheres of religion and spirituality, but also in the arts, medicine and healing, and in research, politics and psychology. Today we are in need of understanding the feminine nature for both men and women. John Steinbeck in East of Eden said, 'I believe a strong woman may be stronger than a man, particularly if she happens to have love in her heart.' My guest today is a film director who's created the most powerful and moving film called Catherine of Sinai. She was an exceptionally spiritual woman who became a saint. Catherine ranks high among the mystics and spiritual writers. She was born at the end of the 3rd century to Roman rulers in Alexandria, Egypt. An incredibly beautiful and intelligent woman, she excelled in her studies and developed renown for her ability in the arts and sciences, especially philosophy. Yet she was tortured and crucified on a wheel of spikes, and it is on that image that the Catherine Wheel is based. She remains a greatly respected figure for her spiritual writings and political boldness as her words speak truth to power. It being exceptional for a woman in her time period to have such influence in politics and on world history. It has taken a truly remarkable man to bring her story to light and is now being recognized by millions globally. Catherine wrote, "Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire." I'd like to welcome writer and director Michael Redwood and thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you, Maria. Glad to join you. I'm a bit nervous, but carry on. You're the psycho, you're the one who can deal with me, so there you go. I know you've had many obstacles during making of the film, but first, can you tell me about your film Catherine of Sinai. Um, it's the story of a young woman, um, which if you look on the information that's scattered all over the internet, they'll say she was a woman of noble birth, um, which we know she wasn't. And she was just a very, um, uh, clever, clever woman who we believe could speak 52 languages by the time she was put to death. Um, her belief was that all people should be allowed to pray in peace, whatever their faith, and that rubbed up, uh, the Roman, um, uh, hierarchy the wrong way, and they're gonna have it. So, uh, they would have ignored her at first, but because she was such, um, a loved woman, she started to create a following which stretches all of the way across to Ireland, across to Europe, And hence we have 2,000 buildings named after her worldwide. You know, it's so interesting having seen your film, uh, let's just tell everybody where we can get the film, where they can see the film. Okay, the film, um, it's on sale in the US, it's on christianscinema.com. I think it's on Prime TV here, so it's rolling out. It will be on, I think, Netflix in the next couple of months, and it will roll out. But Um, there is a CatherineofSinai.com website and people can actually find, um, the film there if they can't see it on Prime TV or wherever. Um, and so with that goes a documentary that, um, thankfully you've seen as well. And I wanted the documentary to explain more about the film, and so I decided to let the documentary— I told the distributors, let the documentary go out for free which seems to have acquired a price and it's gaining more traction than the actual film. But as you know, Maria, you've got access to the link to the documentary, so I think, I think that would be a good step. Firstly, um, katherinesinai.com is the website, and then, um, the documentary they can get from your website. Uh, yeah, yeah. So katherinesinai.com is where they can get both the the documentary and the film, but otherwise it is on distribution, but it's yet to come to Netflix and over here, but it will come. The point— it's on Prime TV in the UK, uh, Amazon Prime TV in the UK. Oh, excellent. So the point why it's such a magical story is it's because it wasn't— she was an ordinary woman who was exceptionally gifted, who did learn, who did know intuitively languages, and she affected millions and millions of people, and she became a as a woman, but why I found it so intriguing as well is not so much, not just the story, which I know has caught the zeitgeist for women in this particular moment, because I do think women are getting confused about what their rights are, who are they, and so on in the world, as we've seen, but it's also that you are a man who is championing women. Now before we come to that part of it, you had, you were making this film and you went through some immense difficulties to get this film off the ground, didn't you? Absolutely, uh, yes, which we didn't piece together. Um, I think when you're on a particular task and you hit the difficulties one by one, we call it fly swatting. Um, what you wouldn't necessarily piece together, that these things had a pattern and were probably coming from one direction. And the difficulties at the time, um, if we were punched from the left and punched from, from the right, we wouldn't necessarily realize the punches were coming from the same source. And the only thing, the only time we concluded exactly what happened to us with all of these horrific difficulties— I can mention a couple if you want me to, um, tell us what happened because you were half Halfway through making this film, and I know that you used a woman, you had a woman who was the leading role that wasn't a fully fledged actress, so to speak, so you somehow infused her enough to be the leading role, and I think she's absolutely magnificent, quite right for the choice, because you had very many top female actresses who wanted to be the leading role because it's such a wonderful role. That's right, yeah. But suddenly it came to a halt, the whole filming? Um, yes, it was, it was, um, in the right order. We, we auditioned— I'll never forget the amount, the number— 535 people. Then we had Nicole Kidman, who was gracious enough to want to do it. But, um, we'd already got the, the rather, you know, well-known names like Edward Fox and Brian Blessed and Stephen Berkoff and Peter O'Toole. And, uh, Edward Fox was very kind. He said to me, well, don't make it a who's who. Of films. And the other thing, um, uh, I've noticed that I've been— I've seen a lot of court problems. We have 43 court cases during the film alone. And I've noticed that when people have never been to courts before, they can be terrified by the theater of court. And I thought, right, okay, we want a girl that looks like Catherine, has the right voice, but she's not— I didn't want her to be trained in acting, so she was never given an acting lesson at all and just learned the words. And then we threw her on the stage at Pinewood Studios and and she was quite rightly terrified by all of these people. And had we got an established, um, thespian, it wouldn't have happened that way. Um, the difficulties started more or less as soon as the first million was raised. That's when it, it was fine up until then. Then when the first million was raised, um, it seemed to prick up the ears of the Financial Conduct Authority, Barclays Bank, were very quick to send somebody around saying, please open your account with us, we're the best filmmaker film accountants. We went with Norman Lipson Paul, who've been doing, you know, all of the Bond films and Ian McKellen— Bond accounts and Ian McKellen's accounts. And so all of these people came forward, and that's when the trouble— when the £2 million came in to— when we raised money, that's when all hell broke loose. Barclays froze the accounts, the Financial Conduct Authority wrote to me, um, threatening me with imprisonment if I didn't tell them who was investing, the names and addresses of each investor and their contact details. And the reason was I don't have a license to raise funds. Now, it was the girls who were doing the raising of funds, and I've not mentioned so far that the team was predominantly female production crew. Most of them were females, as you've seen in the documentary. And so our females, our team of women, were making the calls, organizing accounts. And I remember vividly going to Barclays for a meeting, and this is the one thing I remember more than most. When we— Barclays called us down for a meeting when the second million came in. And I went down with the lady who was organizing accounts, and I saw this young blue-suited guy. Um, he greeted me as I walked through the door, and I saw his face change when he saw Nicole. And I said, well, this is the lady who handles everything. And from there, I felt the shutters going up, and that meeting wasn't very good at all. So we left quite quickly, and the, the problems, um, were exacerbated from that point onwards. So the FCA threatened me with imprisonment because I needed a license to— they said I needed a license to raise money because the company was in my name. And when I said I don't need a license, they, they searched everywhere but everywhere they could to see if I committed any crime. And then when no crime could be found, they were stumped. And the next thing, the police in Colindale— this is the Met Police— uh, put a report in that I was running a cult from the studios and it needs to be stopped. That's not a crime. So the next thing was they put it to, um, they made an official statement that I was running guns and I was involved with gun running. And this was something out of another world. And so on it went and on it went. Back to the union at the time, who had quite a lot of members, they put— they put statements on their websites not to have anything to do with the production company. And that were mostly women. Well, one of the ladies, one of the girls at the studio, rang back to me and said, why are you printing rumors attacking us on your website? And this Um, a chap said, 'I'm not speaking to you,' and put the phone down. Um, so to try and tell you the story of each, um, happening would be too long, but suffice to say that Barnet Council, who— we'd had this building for 5, 6, 7 years. It was an old derelict building that we converted into a film studio. We used to deal with all the local youths. We got, we got on well with them. We would look after— there was, um, a lot of, uh, residential homes for elderly people around, and we used— they, they call the studio the Little Venice. They could come out and have a cup of tea in the studio. We brought productions in, like, you know, with the BBC, with Sean Bean and Macbeth and all of this kind of thing. And so the atmosphere around that area in the building was great, but it was the more that the women started to organize the large funds that were coming in the more the problems began to, began to materialize. And the final crutch was at 4 AM, Barnet Council sent a group of blokes— I call them thugs— they broke into the building and vandalized it, but they were caught by our female security. And when we questioned them— I got there about 4:30, 5 o'clock— and when we questioned them who had sent them and where is the official paperwork to break into this building, they couldn't answer. So that caused outrage in the community. And so the attacks were so frequent and so many that we— if I listed them, it would, it would, it would take up a telephone directory. And we could not understand why this was happening. So we made one mistake, which was when the police accused us of gun running, accused me of gun running, known to mix with the underworld. That's the official statement. Um, that was followed on by a telephone call to the studio for the leading actress, which was Nicole. She was taken into Collindale and then threatened with 6 years to life imprisonment if she continues with this film. Now, if this sounds fictional, it isn't. That— we went, we then took them to Harrow Crown Court, and they said nothing was ever said like that. And Nicole said, well, it was taped, you must have it. And the judge said, well, if it was taped, where's the tape? Now at that point I was given the offer to have Colindale Police Station investigated by an outside body, and everybody was saying let's do this. And I was so buried in production, I really didn't have the time. And I thought fait accompli, we've proven our point. In hindsight, I should have done that to expose what was going on. And so All of these attacks were from different angles, but only when we finished the movie, everything was done, the movie was released, and we found this footage, documentary footage, and we pieced it together, only then did we realize it's not racist because we had some African-Europeans, we had, we had different nationalities, and only then could we conclude it had to be because it was females. Because at the end of the documentary, as you see, when the film was done, Lionsgate, the world's biggest— one of the world's biggest— they took the film and then put the trailer out, which can be seen online, and all female images have been removed. And then we realized what was happening. And so each time we put a front cover on the DVDs or the film, they kept telling us to remove it, and it has to be males on the front cover. So that's when the penny dropped that all of these attacks were at the expense of the female crew. So this is quite unusual, isn't it? No, not now, not when you go to Hollywood. No, not when you go to Hollywood. So you're now in the, you know, world of entertainment, and now you know the inside story. It's always been like that. I just didn't realize, uh, before. I mean, you're a woman, okay? And this is— I've learned this from my 5 sisters. If you were— if you're in a workplace where you, you've seen people— you've all said this, every woman listening will know this— and they can feel a vibe coming off one particular person, and they think, I don't think he likes me. That's all you need. You can be, you can be politically correct, you can keep your job, you can— but you can't be accused of anything sexist or misogynist behavior. Yet you can make it plain to that woman that you don't like her presence there. So this is the invisible sexism, and that's more powerful to me than, than the blatant sexism. So there's so much that went on that you overcame, and that's all in your documentary. But where I'm interested— obviously, if this was a longer period of time we had for an interview, we could go into more detail— but I urge anybody listening to just have a look at the documentary so you'll see the detail of what you had to go through. But there you are, You're the man who is the scriptwriter and the director, and you've got all these women that are relying on you, and a lot of women that are also being threatened here. So you move, uh, the production house, but also you finally make the film, which as I say is amazing. So for those listening, please watch the film, please watch the documentary. But why did you choose Catherine of Siena as your subject? What was it that that made you write the film? I think in all honesty, it was when I was a child and I carried a little picture in my pocket. I cut it out of a magazine of a Mediterranean lady and I fell in love with her. And I carried this picture around in my pocket, used to kiss it every night. I think I was about 5, 6. And I kept kissing it until it disintegrated. And I think there was a plant somewhere along the line. And then there was a series of bizarre— in a nutshell, I bought— I went mad a few years ago and bought a Porsche 911, being silly, you know. Um, the three stages of man: the wanting, the getting, and the getting rid of. And this, this porch broke down, and I cut across a cemetery and tripped over a grave that belonged to a fighter pilot called Tommy Pinkham. And, um, I thought, well, that's in a terrible state. So I, I rebuilt this. He was shot down during the Battle of Britain, and his grave was in pieces. So I went down and rebuilt it, and it was my hiding place away from the, um, the world of entertainment, which I've been in since 1983, since James Cameron's Aliens. And then this fighter pilot, um, his family contacted me. I think the church gave them my details. And this dead pilot's sister said, oh, I have a book, would you like this? And it's a book by Brian Lane, another pilot. And cut a long story short, I turned down that book, but it came back to me 3 times. And so I read it, and Brian was based in Alexandria during the war with the Spitfire Squadron. And Brian had got involved with Catherine, and it kind of— I ended up getting immersed in this Catherine story. And then we, we took it. There's a lot of, um, there are lots and lots of ancient papyrus scrolls, or whatever you call them, um, uh, for sale in, in Egypt. You can still buy them today, and you don't know what you're buying. We ended up purchasing— it's about 100 I can't remember how much we paid, a thousand, maybe a thousand dollars. And a lady from Africa, South Africa, brought this thing over. She brought this ancient diary that was in bits, and it was in ancient Greek. And so we had this for a while, and we— it was a long time before we managed to send it to Oxford and Cambridge University to have it, um, translated. And interestingly enough, Cambridge came back and said the, the, the woman who's written this has clearly read the classics. Oxford came back and said this is gobbledygook. So there you go. I hope I can start a war with those two. And so we had, we had this, um, diary that was written by a Jebal Ekaterina, who we had no idea who this was, and it painted a picture of her life. And so we didn't know what that was. And then years later, we had a huge map on the wall in the studio, a world map. And one of the girls came in and said, oh, look at that, 'Zippa la Caterina,' and pointed to the map. And we all sort of looked, and it was the tip, the top of Mount Sinai, which meant Mount Catherine. And then the penny started to drop that the diary must have belonged to Catherine. Because she says, for instance, um, that although my libraries have been destroyed, these words shall survive. And then we look back and we thought, oh, that's, that's right, the libraries of Alexandria with all of her writings, they were burned, they were destroyed. And so that's how the film kind of ended up— me tripping over a gravestone all the way to receiving this diary and translating it and working out that it must have been written by Catherine of Sinai. So, um, come back to your childhood, because out of all the subjects you could have chosen, we all choose things that are somehow instinctively, unconsciously, as I would say, are triggered by parts of our own lives. So tell us about your childhood, your parents, your family. Um, one of 9 kids, and, um, if anybody offers me another Oxo cube ever in my life, I'll go mad, because that's what we used to do when we were hungry, have an Oxo cube. I don't know how many people you have listening right now who've been— who would take an Oxo cube in their pocket to school and suck on it. That needs to happen, didn't it? I remember that. And you always had that word, that gurgling in your stomach, because we were always hungry. Do you remember that gurgling sound? And we just got used to it as kids. It's Oxo cubes and green shield stamps. And so, um, uh, The family was big, struggling, and you just make do with what you've got. So, and the Christmas time would be the funny time because my mum would fill up two empty wine bottles with tea, cold tea, and put the cork in and then open the window, the curtains, so people walking past could see that we had two wine bottles on the table. So what did your parents do? What were My dad was, um, he was a good, a clever engineer, but never— but always doing things for people for nothing. My mum used to go mad because he would be helping people to fix their trucks and they give him a quarter of tea. Quarter, that's how these call it, half pound of tea or a quarter of tea. So he was always helping other people for nothing, but, um, his main work was just as a security guard. Aha. Yeah, that was it, ICI Chemicals. And of course the town itself was covered in sulfur. You wake up to yellow skies. And, uh, there were— because, uh, the River Thames was, um, a cleaning system for all of the chemical factories that moved there. In London, you wouldn't have them here. So the— in Widnes, which is a, um, a filthy, darkened town with probably 200 chemical factories based in Widnes, they would use the Thames to wash all the chemicals away. And the first anti-pollution bill in the world, I believe, was for Widnes. And it's still the high— in that area is still the highest cancer rate today. It's still— yeah, it's, um, paraquat, sulfur, all kinds of weed killers. And we grew up in that, in that environment, you know, yellow skies, yellow skies. So everybody was struggling. And my dad with 9 kids, I have no idea how he managed, got no idea whatsoever. So you have— where are you in the line of children? 7th, 7th of the 7th. So 7th of the 7th, good number. That's meant to be the number, isn't it? The spiritual number. And also, so who've you got? Where are the brothers? And you've got brothers and sisters? Yeah, um, the 5 sisters and, um, 3 brothers, but I was the only one that was really close to my sisters. They— the brothers, in, in those days you didn't show affection you know, that it was just not done, um, to show affection. I would give my sisters a hug and my father would say, uh, you're going to turn them soft. And I've always had this, this, this affection and respect since I remember, uh, since I was 3 or 4, for the ladies of the house. Not much respect for my brothers because of the way they treated the, the, the ladies. It was just automatic for me that the women knew better. And were they older? Uh, 3 older ones. Hang on, 4 older, 1 younger. Oh, and 1 younger. So, um, what was the clothing situation? Did you wear hand-me-downs? Did you have that sort of— we had that when I was growing up, that people used to send us clothes. Did you have that? Um, it was— do you know what, a lot of it was, um, it was the shame of being seen in, um, buying secondhand shoes or whatever it was. Yeah, um, they weren't even hand-me-downs. They were worse than that. Absolutely worse than that. I think I mentioned to you in our previous conversation, my dad came on one day— I never forget it— with a shoe that he found floating in the water in the docks, and he still had a foot in it. So he just took the foot out. A real foot? Yeah, a real foot. Yeah, yeah. And, um, there were lots of accidents with propellers and stuff in the Thames because there were— the boats were going to match it to Ship Canal. And so you'd find a shoe and you would, uh, just keep it because it's going to match something that you're going to find later on. And then you get the old, the black dye. And so it was just, you wouldn't dare throw a, a shoe that you found. You wouldn't throw it away. Impossible. Silly. And so it was tough, tough times. But we didn't realize, I remember we went to a friend of ours and he was one, he was the only child in the house, and his mother offered us some soup My brother and I said, yeah, okay. So we had the soup and we took one mouthful and it was like— and when we left, my brother said to my mother, uh, that woman is really weird, she doesn't put water in the soup, what's wrong with her? Because that was normal soup, was it? Well, we put a tin— my mom would put a tin of soup in the pot and then just add water to make it, yeah, to make it go round. I get that. So, uh, Christmas was the best time. What were birthdays like? Uh, dreadful, really. Um, it was just one, you know, the apple and an orange and, um, a small present. That was it. Yeah. But did you celebrate? Did you have, you know, did you manage to celebrate? Oh yeah, the Christmas tree and all that kind of stuff. Um, but very, very sparse. But you— it's funny how we seem to be going that way now, where people are making handmade cards and handmade presents. I think we're regressing into a nice period again because— yeah, I agree, um, it's, it's lovely. You know, I've had one lady this year sent me a card. It must have taken her forever to make it. Yeah, that's so sweet, isn't it? Yeah, exactly. Because, um, if you fast forward to my brother's child when she was 7 or 8, Claire, at Christmas, and I said to him, how is Claire? And he said, if you want the honest answer, she's bored opening boxes and presents. She's absolutely bored with it. And it's, come on, open this one, come on, open this one. So, uh, our time at Christmas was, um, the one present, and it was little. So, um, what was your first job? How old were you? About 73. That's going back a bit. Uh, uh, oh, so I was a sewing machine mechanic. Yeah, in a factory with 200 ladies. Ah yeah, and that's funny enough, I still— I fixed somebody's sewing machine a couple of weeks ago, um, because they haven't changed the design, still the same, and, um, they just haven't changed design, you know, the set, the, the hook and thread is the same. So I did 2 years as a sewing machine mechanic, uh, which was an eye-opener with 200 women. You've got to stand your ground. Yes, I've worked in factories, I know what that's like, even for me. So, and so how did you progress to get into the film industry or the entertainment industry? I used to get, um, all my wages and I go to the corner of the factory on a Friday with my 10ps and keep phoning up film companies in London. I've got no idea, they must— I just say, have you got any jobs? And I was obsessed with wanting to make films. Uh, no idea why. I used to spend all of my wages literally in one hour putting 10ps into phone boxes. So who was the first person that said yes then? Nobody. Oh, it was John Poyner from the Dirty Dozen. Um, yeah, I, I, I, I, I did come to London and I got into music and eventually drifted into London, and I was heavily involved in the music scene. And then I started, um, working with Tony Scott, who had a laboratory And but that was just working on films and then on things like Pathé News films and stuff like that. And so you were a musician first, were you? Yeah, I've been playing guitar since I was about maybe 7 or 8. And that's the great thing about entertainment in that respect, so if you're a great musician, I think a lot of musicians actually made it from, if you could afford a guitar, John Lennon, Yeah, you know, Paul had more money from the Beatles, didn't he? But John had to scrimp and save. I think somebody gave him his first guitar. So if you could do that, you could join a band, and then somehow, if things worked out for you, you could move on. Were you successful? Was your band a good band? Um, we did the northern clubs where you would get eaten alive, but I did that until I was 18, and but still working in the factory. However, on a Friday and Saturday night as a young kid, I could earn £15 over the weekend, and I was earning £5, £6, or £7 in the factory. So you were earning for playing? Yeah. Oh, what did you have, singers in front or something? I made a band, uh, had a band with my brother and two other guys, and we'd go out and I would, uh, we would get £7 each per night. A lot of the time we would roll up at these clubs and the people said, we're not having them, the kids. You know, but we, we got good at what we did and we get adopted. I think most of the women would say, oh, let them play, they're only young, leave them alone. But we earned— I remember, I remember we were playing at one club. I mean, we were kids and it was ever so funny. We were playing at one club and the compere said, right, that's it. He said, right, that's enough. He said, right, give him a hand. They would, they were they were doing the best, but we can't have any more. And this lady shouted from the audience, 'Shut up, bighead, leave him alone and get off the stage yourself.' And what, they kept you on? Yeah, we played the whole night. Yeah, that's great, because that was the reality of the northern working clubs, weren't they? Because it was the audience that decided. Exactly. And suddenly it's all gone, it's all become a little bit too systematized, and the people have become you know, sort of put to the side. I think that's all got to come back where the audience decides. When I was doing the clubs though, it was the audience that decided, comedy clubs, that the— who was going to be funny, because if you laugh, you're funny. If you're— if people don't laugh, that doesn't, you know, the stage doesn't work for you. But it was the same in the working men's clubs, they were really profound. So what were the difficult bits? You then move on from being a musician into film? Uh, well, it— in very quickly, at 18, I couldn't stand the factories anymore and the smog, and, um, it was dreadful. And so I went to Blackpool to do an audition for Pontins and got sent to Green Sands as a bluecoat, where, where I was on the same, um— obviously, uh, you know John, um, your friend John, and that's— he was in the same— he knew the same people as I did, so it was kind of weird. And that was the break tip: once at Pontins, then never go back. And that's what I did, didn't, didn't go back, and ended up in London, um, as a musician and a roadie. So what you would do is you would have a band that you play in the evenings or weekends, and then as a roadie, you would be carrying equipment around for the big bands. So I was lucky because I could play guitar, um, I I, I knew how to— most, if you look at any concert with any band, they come on stage and they mess around tuning their instruments. But when I was roadieing, I would make sure all the instruments were tuned. So I started to get the likes of Eric Clapton, Van Morrison, Stevie Wonder, those kind of people said, we want this guy because he, he's really quick. And so then eventually, um, it was kind of— with me, dream came— my dream came too late because I was touring as a roadie with, um, Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts and Rolling Stones. For those who don't recognize the names, they're the Rolling Stones, aren't they? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Georgie Fame and Lulu and Ruby Turner, all these people. And then, uh, Alexis Korner's wife said to me, Michael, why don't you get up and play? And I said, well, I really play bass. And then Bill Wyman from the Stones said, well, you play bass, I'll play 12 strings. So I ended up gigging with them And I thought, this is great. This is what I dreamed of, the Rolling Stones, when I was a child. I never thought I'd end up playing on stage with them. So it was— but I'd already got into the— my head into films. It never left me, this idea of films. And then how did you move from there? Because that's a dream for most people, to play with the Stones. How did you move from there to becoming a film producer? Because this is your first film, but it's a successful film straight away, isn't it? So how did you move from there? What were the steps? It was a weird one. There used to be a paper called Screen International. I think it's still going, and you could buy that, um, expensively every week, and it would tell you, you know, Pinewood Studios forthcoming productions, uh, whatever it was. And you would— you'd see all of these incredible things going on, and I just— I'll never forget it. I was eating a cheese roll at the time. And I dialed this number of Aliens with James Cameron at Pinewood, and I dialed the number and this chap picked up the phone and he was really annoyed at how I got the number. And I said, oh, I got it from Screen International. He said, what do you want? And I said, I, I just wondered if, um, if you had any jobs sort of editing or whatever. And he said, who is this? So he said, okay, he said, what's your name? He said, I'll leave your name on the door at Pine, but come tonight at 8 o'clock. And I didn't have a car at the time, and I thought, how the hell am I going to get there? So I borrowed somebody's car and I drove up there, and sure enough, my name was on the gate, and it was a lovely man called Phil Sanderson, who's edited some great— the Guns of Navarone, the Superman films, the Star Wars films. And Phil said, all right, um, start in the morning with me, and that was it. I was in. And then James Cameron came out to say hello to me, and I thought, I'm here in the cutting rooms. There were 32 editors on Aliens, and I was in the cutting rooms getting paid every week, and I thought, wow, this is great. Okay, so let's stop there because, you know, it— to the outside world, it sounds like, oh yeah, this is what happens. But what did it take? How did you What was it inside you, A, that picks up the phone, that makes those phone calls, because a lot of people wouldn't, B, you get into a job that you've never done before but you managed to do it. What is it? Because I've done jobs, you know, and sometimes you do it and, or you don't do it, or you're too afraid that you'd let yourself down or you wouldn't be able to do the job. What is it in your mindset that got you in there and got you to do the job? What was your thinking? I think, um, it's interesting you, you just mentioned that, Maria, because I was looking at, um, you know, the, the, the situation with women. And if you look at Forbes' publications, um, where they say women must work their way up the masculine ladder whilst facing stigma and discrimination, and when they're seeking funding for a new business, they suffer gender lens investing. So most women will set up a business or go for an ambition using either credit cards or their own monies because they will seldom be given money by a bank as opposed to males. So back to this question, what was it? It was the need to, um, I think from about the age of 11, I kind of had a, for a split second, I had an image. I shot my brother. He was playing Indians and I was a cowboy. He was Indian and I shot— no, I was the, I was the Indian, he was the cowboy. And he shot me and I went, uh, and I fell over and I thought, oh, I like this, I want to be an actor. That seriously, that was about a few seconds and it hit me like a thunderbolt, and I think that stayed with me. Yeah, yeah. But there you are, you're actually in a job. So yes, the door was open because you're a man, and I know that for a fact, you know, in my world that there are certainly— men get money easier, men are sort of given more attention by other men. It's almost as if there's a magnet that happens between them that attracts and allows men— I know that, you know, there are lots of men who have got less skills than women, yet they still, um, manage to get investment and so on. But what is it in your mindset, your attitude, that just goes, yes, I can do that? I learned to play a guitar. You're on stage, you're now with the Stones. You do— you become a roadie, you go down and you know, you work at Pontins, you're now working in the cutting room, the editing room of a major TV, uh, film studio. What is it in your mindset that enables you to do that? Is it because you had— you watched 6 other people before you as you're growing up doing things, or what is it in your mindset that enables you to have that gift to be able to do these things? That's a really, really good question, and I can nail it in one. I had abscesses in my ears as a child, which, um, all my family used to say. Now they can remember me screaming with the, the untreated abscesses, and they were bursting, and the pain was so— I couldn't hear anything. And when— yeah, so what I would do is I would, uh, I was often alone as a child. Nobody would— getting bullied. There was a game at school where there would— guys would come up to me and whisper something, so I'd lean forward because I couldn't hear, and they would headbutt me. And it I used to fall for it every time. So headbutting me was the game at school. And then, so what I would do is retreat, and I would just have this imagination of what I wanted to do. So I would just walk around the streets alone as a kid. Yeah, very lonely, really, really lonely. I never spent time with my sister, just only when we had to come in at nighttime. But just walk around the streets. And my aunt, who was like a young— she was like a dark-haired version of Marilyn Monroe— she saw me one day and said, what are you doing? And she she said, come on, do you want a tomato sandwich? And, um, I said, oh yes, knowing she didn't have the bread. And to this day, I, I still love it a bit. She's 80-something, 86, and I still love tomato sandwiches because of the love that she gave to me. But I think, to answer your question, the imagination— I would, I would imagine these stories in my head. And then at the age of 11, something happened where my ears just banged, and suddenly birds and dogs and traffic was deafening in one side of my ear and a little bit in the other, and I couldn't hold— the volume was intense. So to answer the question, it was— I'd, I'd been in so many little stories in my head, and I think that followed through afterwards. Do you think it's your relationship with women that's given you this understanding of what— who women are now? I think the only affection was given by women. Yeah, the boys used to— it was just terrific, horrible, but everybody's been through bullying. Yeah, um, but, um, you, you mentioned Chris Rock, how he was taken aback by that punch from, um, Will Smith, um, and you mentioned to me earlier that he'd been bullied. And I think that you try and find a diplomatic way out, or the best thing to do is avoid them. So just go around the streets by yourself. My mom never knew where I was. I would just walk and imagine things. Imagine flying, or imagine being in a film. Usually imagine something to do with films. So that is— to— that's a really good question because you've just made me realize what it must have been surfacing after my hearing came back. Yeah, so that's very powerful. People don't realize that, you know, from children, uh, just by means of growth, things can change inside on a physical level. But we're not going to go into about now, that's a big story and a big subject in itself. But you are now working on more films, but you worked in sound eventually, didn't you? Yes, and just to step back, if I may, you just now pointed out— I know this is your habit— you've just made me realize something else. The only affection I can think of, of the early years, are women. And perhaps something there. Maybe that's why I carried that picture in my pocket when I was a child, because even 4 or 5 was dreadful. Yeah. Ah, so you did your 4 or 5. So you just now nailed it. Was always the safest place was to be near women because they were very kind to me. Yeah. So, you know, I do think that we are suffering from a time where women are making a mistake. Some women, not all of course, are making a mistake by becoming more masculine in their thinking, you know, instead of retaining that ability. But it's also good that men are beginning to be more affectionate. But that's again just making a comment there. But there you are, you're now in the editing room and you start dealing in sound, which is obviously, you're what you're good at because you had hard of hearing, so you knew how important it is. And sound, they say, is much more important for a film or anything that you watch than the film itself. Yeah, if you look at talking books, you try and watch a movie, as I said to you before, try and watch a movie without the sound on, and then it's impossible for a radio play, you know. And George Lucas said 70% of a film is sound. Yeah, and that's why it's so profound to have good music, which you have in the film about Catherine. Amazing sound, amazing music. So how did you get into— because we're now coming sort of in the last quarter of the interview and there's other things to talk about— how did you become a film— you wrote the script, you produced it, and you directed it. So how did that happen? And then let's talk about your up-and-coming film. Um, I think that, um, it was for— I was still on set because I'd learned to mix sound when I was in music. So, uh, I noticed when I was recording music, as I was always putting sound effects on the tracks, you know, it didn't kind of wash well when you've got somebody singing I love you and a machine gun comes in in the background. And I thought, I'm in the wrong— I'm doing the wrong thing here. So sound editing was the thing that attracted me. And John Porno, who was a lovely man, he won an Oscar for a film called The Dirty Dozen on Sound. And I, I, uh, contacted John and said— in fact, I drove to his house and shoved the tape through his door, came back, and he called me. And he's in the documentary, as you've seen. Um, and John called me and said, I think this is wonderful. And he took me under his wing at Shepperton Studios. And so, um, there were lots of— I think Going back to the— how did it become produced? I think on Aliens, um, there wasn't much room to make that movie. It was in the— I think they call it the mortuary at Pinewood. So Pinewood must have been a hospital at one point because it's still there. There's an arch door saying mortuary. And all of the camera shots are very close up, in your face. And I've noticed I do that with my own film. You notice I'm a bugger for close-ups. I like to see close-ups of people's faces. To get what I don't like— wide shots— because you can't really see, um, what, what they're thinking. And so I wanted actors with good expressions. You could think on screen as opposed to speak. And, uh, the— to, to make the film, it was just a snap decision, I think. But how— you, you had to write the script. Had you ever written a script before? No. No. Okay, so you wrote the script, you then had get the money, so produce it. And then you directed some sensationally superb actors: Peter O'Toole, Edward Fox, Brian Blessed. Where do you get that confidence from to do all of those aspects, plus fight against people who didn't want you to have— who wanted to stop the film? Um, I think, uh, we're rewinding a question you asked about, um, 10 minutes ago. No confidence, but I always thought, look, if I said to you I can do something and I haven't got a clue how to do it, the worst thing you can do is sack me. And so always dropping yourself into the deep end and damn the torpedoes. Yeah, so you don't mind. So the downside of something like that is that the film wouldn't be a good film, I presume, if you don't do— if you're not a good director or you're not a a scriptwriter, a good scriptwriter. So it's just saying, okay, as you say, just make it happen and see what happens. Actually, I'll be really honest, I've never told anybody this. Um, I didn't know how to write a script, and I said to John Porner, have you got the script to The Dirty Dozen? He said, I have a second to borrow it, please. So I just copied the style of where you put the cuts and the fades, and I noticed it was in Courier font. They have to be in Courier fonts. Ah, and then, uh, so for example, if you send a script off and it's in Times New Roman font, uh, they won't even look at it, and it's snobism. And I worked out that the reason why Courier font— it must be in Courier font— is because lots of old dinosaurs are still in control of the film companies and they're used to typewriter, which is Courier. Interesting, isn't it? So you've worked all that out. There's something in your mind that has done that, and I don't think any that there is nothing in our university, or even if you were to put a masterclass on, that would teach you what you have learned and picked up all over all this time. Okay, so now you are making a new film. Yeah, you've written the script and it's called Third Angel. Do you want to tell us about that? Oh, actually, if I can just spin back a little bit. You can. To answer your question there, I, I was, um, I said to all my friends, I'm going to send all of these scripts off to all these actors, and they, if they write back and say thanks, but good luck in the future. You know those? Good luck. Yeah. And I said, we'll send them off. And it was almost half a life, and every single actor contacted and said absolutely yes. And I had no idea why. I had no idea. I thought, well, maybe the script must have been okay then. It was just because it's got to have the correct format, which you're quite right, but also it has to have something of significance. And it was, wasn't it, was it Peter O'Toole's last film? He was retired, and I sent it to Peter anyway. And well, I gave the part to somebody else, Herbert Long, who I loved. Herbert, you know, I do Inspector Clouseau, because he looks a bit Roman, doesn't he? He does, he does. Yeah, and I gave it to Herbert Long, and then Peter O'Toole contacted the studio, uh, with this little studio that we built up by then, and, um, he wanted to do it. And I said, oh, I was so shocked that he wanted to do it. I've given the part to somebody else. And he put the phone down, then the following day rang again and said, well, write an effing part for me. So amazing. Yeah. And I went, uh, okay then. So I did. So I wrote those scenes where he's in the prison cell with Catherine and so on. Yeah, amazing, amazing shot. I've said that. So let's talk about your new film because we are sadly tight for time on this, but you have it. I don't want the new film to go To Be Lost. There's a couple of ideas you've got, but can you tell us about those? Well, um, it's, it's firstly, uh, all of my films may seem to be about female characters, but that's just the reason. It's just there because I've got my personal view of the world and, and, um, how women are treated, you know. And so, um, and I'm looking— because you make one film of a historical heroin, I suppose you call them, you start to see others. Like if you buy a striped green Vauxhall Viva and then you think the only one that's got it, as I've said to you before, drive out on the street and you'll realize how many other people have got one. And in noticing that Catherine was a tremendous figure, then one follows on to other people that have been tremendous figures. And, um, so the new film, uh, I've got two in the project. One is, um, The, the, a film about a young girl who has been trafficked, uh, which is not nice, uh, and fact is it's a big industry, huge. America is one of the biggest because in the UK if you need a kidney you wait no matter how much money you have. In America, just buy one, money talks. And actually it's in other parts of the world as well, you can buy organs, can't you? Yeah, and then when these young, um, girls are, uh, I've been, I've got a lot of research from, uh, SaveAChild.org, which is some American chaps, uh, 7 ex-military who actually go out rescuing these kids. And some of those stories are unbelievable. Um, and so the, the 2 films I've got at the moment, uh, one is called— the working title is called The Third Angel. Yeah, it's a lovely title actually. I quite like that. Oh, thank you. And, um, this is about a young girl who is, uh, trafficked and rescued by a CIA computer analyst who goes on holiday after the death of his, his wife and his daughter. Factual, these are actual recorded incidents. And he stumbles across this girl who's been trafficked and, uh, rescues her and disappears for 2 years with this girl. So the CIA are wondering where the guy has gone. They go on the hunt for him, but people who work for the CIA work on a, on a It's a commercial base, it's not, it's not part of the military. And so there's a big hunt for this guy and this girl. Eventually him and the girl split up and he returns and the girl is nowhere to be seen until the infrastructures of satellites, communications, all the basic war infrastructure, nuclear silos, has all been infiltrated by a virus. And it's coming from this girl, buried. She's buried somewhere in a mountain. And what she wants is the world to acknowledge that child trafficking is, um, involving hundreds of thousands of children. The government know— the government— governments know who these children are, as we've had an example with Rotherham, with the police chief at Rotherham. Terrible, terrible. And so, um, you know, that she is going to bring the world to a halt unless every child is rescued. I think she gives them a short time to do it, and they can't stop her virus. Nobody can stop it. But it's such a magnificent story, and it's so powerful because it's a young woman again. And the fact is that you are tuning into something, as I said, the zeitgeist of what is needed today with women. You know, that, uh, that's why if you're being contacted about Catherine of Sinai, that people are calling you and saying, I've got to watch this, I've got to watch it over and over again, because it's truly inspirational. And, you know, The Third Angel will be again another film that is inspirational, that things can be done. Although, as you say, it's much harder for women. And I think it's not bleating on about a gender issue, it's the fact that we— and what is great about you and why I am so pleased to be interviewing you is that you are a man that can teach other men to help women get through these moments, whether it's through making a film. So when you make films, you're quite happy to have amateur actors that are female. And one of the main things you also want to do, you've told me, is to work with young people in the film world. Do you want to tell us about that? Um, on the last film, on the Catherine film, we brought in some young students from 16 to 18. They said to me, can we bring them? I said, yeah, sure, bring them on. And they turned out to— every single one of them was just magnificent. And then I discovered they weren't getting paid. Most film companies will give them a packet of crisps and a Coca-Cola. And I said, well, this is wrong, that they're working their backsides off. So I made sure that every one of them got the full rates, and not one of them was put on— every one of them was given credits on the film, not as a trainee, which is what the label usually is, but for example, if we had 3 3 people on dress, um, on costumes, and a 4th was a trainee. She would be classed as, uh, 4th assistant. And we were so impressed with these young people. Unlike my day when we were, you know, we would have messed around, they're so focused and we couldn't fault one of them. And they were teaching us things we didn't know. Our makeup girl said she was learning so much off this 16-year-old girl. She said, she's showing me tricks I've never known. And so, and us guys, the older guys, we love to see the youngsters learning. We love it when they're standing on the camera, you know. The, the DOP, uh, on our film, Peter Taylor, he got, he got the award for Gladiator. Peter loved when I said to him, is this okay, this young lady comes with you to watch what you're doing? I said, yeah, of course, we love it, we love teaching, we love to see them flourish. Because there is something about that apprenticeship scheme that somehow you're your knowledge is being valued by somebody. It's not just that you have the knowledge, but you're teaching somebody who really wants to learn and absorbs everything. That's right. And they wouldn't go home at night. They were hanging around the studios at 10 o'clock and we're saying, go home, we're back at 5 o'clock in the morning. Go home. Yeah, but there's something in the doing, isn't it? That's because you can't get that from university because it's not quite real, and you can't get it from, you know, a story. You can't get it from, you know, a course. You've got to be there to live it because of all the anxiety. All the shots have to be so individual and you have to have that correct eye. And your director of photography, your DOP, is sensational in the film. And I presume you're going to continue working with people who are equally as sensational when you get that moving. And so when you do the next film, can people contact you? Oh, absolutely, absolutely. Um, the old days of I don't want students on the set, they've now gone. The young people coming on, it— I can't expect— it sounds ridiculous, it sounds like I'm walking around with rose-tinted glasses. We could— when I saw our, our makeup lady, Michelle, who's been doing it for 30 years, and she was a Scottish hard-nosed lady with Tourette's, and she said, this girl, what did you find her from? I said, is there a problem? She said, no, she's something brilliant. She's teaching me tricks I've never known, how to speed up makeup, how to add scars more quickly. Where did you find these people? I said, I don't know, they just came. And so my respect for the younger— I learned then the younger generation are so advanced, and I can't wait to, to bring on, uh, new people onto the next film. I have to say this, the female, the female numbers out there were more females than males, and they seemed to be the ones who would not let go until the job was done. They never came back and said, I can't do this. So they just continued. So here we are, we're almost at the end, and I just want everybody to know how to get your film, which is CatherineofSinai.com. But I presume they can contact you for future films, and if they want to work with you— if they can't contact you, please get in touch with maria.kempinska3@gmail.com, or through Men's Radio Station or Women's Radio Station, because I know that with your work you have this amazing magnetism that will draw the right people to you. And you are creating these fabulous films that are so needed. They're not only telling a story, but they are transforming people's lives. So Can I just say thank you? Well, thank you to you, and I feel somewhat humbled, of course. And thank you so much for interviewing me. That's great. Thank you. It's an absolute pleasure. Michael Redwood, you're a film director, writer, and producer. Thank you for doing Your Mind Matters.