BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts

Lauren LeVernier, we're taking our summer break, so until we're back on air, we're showcasing

a few programs from our archive, as usual the music's been shortened for right reasons.

This week's guest is the artist and filmmaker Steve McQueen.

Kirstie Young cast him away back in 2014.

My cast away this week is the artist and director Steve McQueen.

These days his talents are well recognised.

His art is one the Turner prize and his most recent movie, 12 Years A Slave,

scooped an Academy Award, a BAFTA and a Golden Globe for Best Picture.

He wasn't always as loaded.

At school in West London he was at one point shoved to one side, in the belief that the best

he could hope for was to earn his living as a manual labourer.

Instead he chose art, portraying the extremes of what human beings put themselves

and others through what he is called dancing with ghosts.

Along with reaching the top of two professions he's also managed to meet the divergent

demands of his parents.

His father wanted him to get a trade, his mother on the other hand urged him to do what you want to do.

He says, I want to make films that are essential.

We're all going to die and we haven't got a lot of time on this planet.

Life goes very quickly, so we might as well make films that people will go to see

because they need it or want it.

And I think Steve McQueen that is a really interesting and wonderful phrase films

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