{"id":673156,"date":"2026-09-05T01:16:17","date_gmt":"2026-09-05T01:16:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/673156\/"},"modified":"2026-09-05T01:16:17","modified_gmt":"2026-09-05T01:16:17","slug":"the-uprisings-paul-greengrass-and-andrew-garfield-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/673156\/","title":{"rendered":"‘The Uprising’s Paul Greengrass And Andrew Garfield Interview"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t[Warning: The following contains some mild spoilers for The Uprising<\/a>]<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tInto this time where so many might feel powerless in the face of governmental decision-making, comes Paul Greengrass<\/a>\u2019 new film The Uprising. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe Oscar-nominated writer-director-producer digs into England\u2019s 14th-century Peasant\u2019s Revolt \u2014 a story that will surely ring bells today \u2014 when the disenfranchised rose up against authority to fight for autonomy and change. Leading the charge is Andrew Garfield<\/a> as a humble farmer known only as \u2018Ploughman\u2019. <\/p>\n

\n\tIn a feudal era when the king simultaneously led church and state and the common people were known as \u2018serfs\u2019 and were effectively owned by their local lords, rebellion was unheard of. That is, until the teenage King Richard II\u2019s counsel pushed for the peasant farmers to pay more tax. Ploughman has already lost his family to the plague and when the tax collector comes to his village, he hits his limit and lashes out. Suddenly, the humble farmer has incited a countrywide uprising. You\u2019d better believe heads will roll\u2026<\/p>\n

\n\tAlongside Garfield\u2019s Ploughman is Cosmo Jarvis<\/a> as the true historical figure Wat Tyler, Jamie Bell as clergyman John Ball and Thomasin McKenzie<\/a> as fellow rebel Alyce. Add to that, Katherine Waterston<\/a> as Countess and mother to the king, Tom Hollander<\/a> as Treasurer Hales and King\u2019s Counsel, Stephen Dillane as Archbishop Sudbury, Jonny Lee Miller as Mayor Walworth, Stanley Townsend as Chief Justice Belknapp, Sky Yang (Rebel Moon, Last Days) as a royal scribe and Woody Norman (C\u2019mon C\u2019mon) as King Richard II.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"The<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tAndrew Garfield as Ploughman in \u2018The Uprising\u2019<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFocus Features<\/p>\n

\n\tIn this interview, Greengrass and Garfield tell the story of how they turned history into a hero\u2019s journey, the shoot in Bavaria and Germany, including in an ancient Nuremberg church, where exactly Robin Hood fits into the picture, and how, in some ways, Ploughman could be any one of us.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: I felt very proud as a Brit watching this, especially as I\u2019m from Norfolk where a lot of the uprising went on.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tPAUL GREENGRASS:<\/strong> They did a lot of chopping of heads off up there.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE:<\/strong> Speaking of chopping off heads, what a time it was to be alive then, or very nearly dead, because everybody lived on a knife edge of poverty and violence. It was terrifying.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tGREENGRASS:<\/strong> But also incredibly inspiring, I think.<\/p>\n

\n

Every day I would wake up like the rest of us going, \u2018Are the people that I want to be held accountable being held accountable today? No.\u2019 Every day it was a repeat enragement every morning. And I read this, and I thought, Well, here\u2019s a response to that. <\/p>\n

Andrew Garfield<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: Yes, because I think most people feel quite disenfranchised at this time. And this is a film about how even a farmer with absolutely no means can make change. It feels like a call to action.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tANDREW GARFIELD: <\/strong>Yeah, agreed.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: Paul, do you remember the light bulb moment where you thought, this story is what I want to do next?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tGREENGRASS:<\/strong> I do. Absolutely. It was in my mind to do a film about an English rebellion and I had a few that I looked at, some a bit more modern, some even further back. But this was always my favorite and I had read more about this one than any other. This was in the year or two before COVID. And then when COVID hit and we were locked down, on the second day\u2026 It was so strange, the first day I thought, Well, I\u2019m going to go to work because that\u2019s the only way I\u2019m going to get through this. I went in the office, which luckily for me is at home, and I said, \u201cI\u2019m going to write a movie about the Peasants\u2019 Revolt.\u201d And that\u2019s what I did.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe light bulb was\u2026 I didn\u2019t engage in any history because I\u2019d read all that. I just thought, OK, well, what am I going to start with? I\u2019m going to start with a simple farmer, an ordinary farmer, and I\u2019m going to take him, get him mixed up in the Peasants\u2019 Revolt at the moment it starts, and then I\u2019m going to try and give him a hero\u2019s journey through it. And that\u2019s what I did all the way to the end. And I actually, that first draft I called The Hood \u2014 that was what it was called because of where it ended. And actually, it really didn\u2019t change very much. It got better because I did work over the years on it, but the essential architecture and characters and journey remained the same all the way.<\/p>\n

\n

Robin Hood, the ballads all postdate the Peasants\u2019 Revolt and were wildly popular and continued to resonate and echo down. Why? Because at a time when people felt that the world was unjust, telling stories about an outlaw who stood up against power when they themselves felt powerless, that kept the dream alive.<\/p>\n

Paul Greengrass<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: Andrew, you were the first to sign on \u2014 did you immediately see the script and say yes, or was there a conversation with Paul beforehand? What was the story there?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tGARFIELD:<\/strong> It was immediate for me. I sent an email to Paul as soon as I read it and I asked him to consider me. I really felt very passionate about it and I felt very touched by it in a very, very deep, deep place. And as you say, it felt like a kind of antidote to the disenfranchisement and a kind of isolation and an anxiety and an awareness that the world is out of joint, that there\u2019s major and minor injustices occurring all the time in our world and that there seems to be no accountability. And every day I would wake up like the rest of us going, \u201cAre the people that I want to be held accountable being held accountable today? No.\u201d Every day it was a repeat enragement every morning. And I read this, and I thought, Well, here\u2019s a response to that. This feels like a good place to put our energy and our artistry and our yearning to set the world in order. And then Paul is someone who I\u2019ve longed to work with for a long time, so those two things combined felt like one of those rare instances where I felt very, very compelled to fight for a role.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"The<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t(L to R) Director Paul Greengrass and Cosmo Jarvis on the set of \u2018The Uprising\u2019<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBetina La Plante\/Focus Features<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: Some people, when I told them I was going to see this film, asked, \u201cIs it Robin Hood?\u201d What did you both talk about in terms of background reading, understanding Ploughman and the Robin Hood factor? What were the reference points?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tGREENGRASS:<\/strong> Well, it was really very simple. First of all, you\u2019ve got to look at it in terms of cinematic storytelling and then you got to look at it in terms of what the history tells us. What was interesting to me when I started writing was, as I said earlier, I put all the history aside but I knew it. And one of the things that it had shown me was that when the Peasants\u2019 Revolt was crushed, people didn\u2019t stay crushed, the dream stayed alive in human history. And one of the principle ways it stayed alive was that people started to tell stories about outlaws. The late 14th century, you see this huge bubbling up from underneath. The [stories] weren\u2019t courtly poems, they were the stories that people told in taverns and village squares. They were the people\u2019s stories, they were stories of outlaws. And most of all, stories of the legendary figure. Not a real person, because there never was a real person for Robin Hood. But Robin Hood, the ballads all postdate the Peasants\u2019 Revolt and were wildly popular and continued to resonate and echo down. Why? Because at a time when people felt that the world was unjust, telling stories about an outlaw who stood up against power when they themselves felt powerless, that kept the dream alive. That\u2019s where the legend of Robin Hood began and why it began.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs I was writing the story of Ploughman, you couldn\u2019t make a film set against the backdrop of the Peasants\u2019 Revolt and go, \u201cAnd then the revolution got crushed and Ploughman got killed and that\u2019s the end of the film.\u201d Because who\u2019s interested in that? Your hero\u2019s journey demands that your hero marches in hope, trusts in the king, and once he\u2019s betrayed, goes, \u201cI\u2019m not going to stand for that. I\u2019m going to go to the forest and haunt you for the rest of your days.\u201d And confronts him, that\u2019s what you want your movie to do. And so the two came together, that\u2019s where the legend of Robin Hood began, and this is a movie set against that. Obviously, this character is going to become a character like that which is why I [originally] called it The Hood. It\u2019s always been there.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: Andrew, you\u2019ve said that you really like research, and historical research. Tell me about some of the work you did to build this character. And also, just the physicality of him, he had to be able to wield a scythe convincingly. I\u2019m not sure most of us have ever held a scythe these days so what was the background prep for you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tGARFIELD:<\/strong> It all started with the script. Paul\u2019s script was really comprehensive and then he had troves of research that he shared with all the cast as we came on. And then we had a person called Dan Jones who wrote one of the quintessential books on this period called Summer of Blood. He was our consultant and an incredible historian and teacher and just, again, a trove of information. I would be able to text him and say, \u201cWhere would my ox sleep?\u201d And he\u2019s like, \u201cWell, it depends on the month. If it\u2019s the winter months, the ox is going to sleep inside the hut because it needs to be your main source of central heating.\u201d It\u2019s details like that where you\u2019re like, \u201cOh wow, that just enriches my ability to immerse myself in this period.\u201d And even if we never see it, to have that knowledge just gives you so much play space in your imagination.<\/p>\n

\n

I wanted to make a big historical epic because I\u2019d never made one and I love those films. I loved Spartacus, the Kubrick movie. I loved Braveheart. I loved Gladiator in particular. They\u2019re great, great historical epics and I wanted to do my own version of that set against the Peasants\u2019 Revolt.<\/p>\n

Paul Greengrass<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n\tAnd then of course, what was important for me to know about the Ploughman was his immediate experience rather than a grander context. He doesn\u2019t know much outside of his plot and his village so I wanted to know about village life, I wanted to know about the rhythm of the seasons, the rhythm of his day, the rhythm of his work, his relationship with god, his relationship with his family. And also was very, very vital, of course, was the experience of living through the plague and the symptoms of that disease, watching his kids go through it, watching his wife and children die from it. I needed as visceral an understanding of that as possible because that\u2019s the part of the engine, part of the grief that gives him the engine to feel called to wreak justice on the world and change things. All of those things, devastating and fascinating all at once.<\/p>\n

\n\tGREENGRASS: <\/strong>I would say one thing, if I may, just to add to that, that it comes down to what your intent is when you start a film like this. It was never the purpose to make a documentary about the Peasants\u2019 Revolt or a history lesson. What was in my mind was I wanted to make a big historical epic because that\u2019s a genre that I\u2019d never worked in. Same as you might say, \u201cI want to make a contemporary action movie.\u201d I wanted to make a big historical epic because I\u2019d never made one and I love those films. I loved Spartacus, the Kubrick movie. I loved Braveheart. I loved Gladiator in particular. They\u2019re great, great historical epics and I wanted to do my own version of that set against the Peasants\u2019 Revolt.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut you approach it the same way. You\u2019re not approaching it on the level of documentary, you\u2019re approaching it on the level of how can you create a hero\u2019s journey? And very often those films, that genre, has certain things you have to have. It has to have the world turning, be concerned with justice and injustice, have caught the intrigues and a hero in opposition, a love story at the center of it, a crowd, spectacle, cinematic quality, battles. Those are the constituent parts and those are the things that I was wrestling with as you try to craft the story.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"The<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tL to R: Tom Hollander as Treasurer Hales, Woody Norman as King RIchard II and Katherine Waterston as The Countess in \u2018The Uprising\u2019<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBetina La Plante\/Focus Features<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: Well, to that point, I really love that you didn\u2019t lean so much into the romance factor. I thought that was really gratifying to see that you focused on the story of Ploughman and the rebellion.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tGREENGRASS: <\/strong>It\u2019s in there. But it\u2019s me so I\u2019d hope it\u2019s been done in an understated fashion. But I think the story of these two characters, both of whom have experienced loss, that you don\u2019t understand her loss until later, and the way that they, as it were, find each other, I think is in the spine of the movie. And it\u2019s incredibly moving, I think, with that big, big scene when she persuaded him to come back. You\u2019re right, every filmmaker sings his or her song in the register that\u2019s comfortable for them with the nuance and emphasis that\u2019s appropriate, and my films tend to be about the world turning in fairly dramatic ways. But I think it\u2019s got those human characters and that sense of that farmer and that follower of John Ball coming together, I think it\u2019s really, really important in the story. But no, it\u2019s not iterated in a Hollywood fashion, for sure.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: Andrew, tell me about the experience of the shoot itself. Some of these locations are just incredible, you\u2019re in Bavaria, and in this 13th-century church in Nuremberg. It must have just been incredible. Also, the crafts on this film are extraordinary, the makeup, the costume, the boils on your neck even\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tGARFIELD:<\/strong> It was immersive. Everything in Paul\u2019s movie, every department, brought that kind of immersion for the actors and for the story. And yeah, it\u2019s incredibly impressive what the costume department did with limited funds and what the set department did. It\u2019s really, really an incredible thing. Honestly, it was wonderful shooting in Germany, in Bavaria. We had a really great time with a great German crew and some people from Budapest as well. And all these beautiful medieval towns in Nuremberg itself. It was a voyage of discovery in the same way that it was for the Ploughman in a way.<\/p>\n

\n

What did the American Revolution become? America threw off the king. No kings. We\u2019ll live in our own republic\u2026 These events that are so unknown in America actually are foundational really, historians would argue.<\/p>\n

Paul Greengrass<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n\tBut particularly shooting out in the wilderness, shooting out in nature, felt really, really gratifying. It was like being clapped off of a rugby field every time at the end of the day by Paul. And it must be said as well, that the extras, the supporting artists, the background artists, they\u2019re the missing ingredient, the secret weapon of the film in a way. Everywhere you look in frame, you have passionate, true, soulful performances. Whether or not you know who those characters are, you feel them and it\u2019s unconscious in a way. It\u2019s subliminal. It helps provide a deep immersion. And the way that Paul worked with them and directed them and moved them through the lens with the help of Cliff Lanning, our first AD, and P\u00e5l [Ulvik Rokseth] our DP and camera operator, it was a masterclass for me. I was very, very observant of how they were managing to create such authenticity while also giving everyone such support and encouragement and love in the action.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: I read that Cosmo had this Estuarian accent that he maintained for the entire time. Was that just a general vibe that everybody stayed really in, or was that just Cosmo?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tGARFIELD:<\/strong> Cosmo stayed in it, but he wasn\u2019t overly earnest. We were mucking about whenever we could. We were having a laugh in between takes and talking absolute nonsense. But he takes his work incredibly seriously like we all do, but he\u2019s also a proper good hang in between takes, Jamie and myself and Cosmo and Paul and Thomasin. It was a lovely time. It was a happy time in the muck and in the mire. But yeah, he\u2019s an incredible actor, Cosmo.<\/p>\n

\n\tGREENGRASS:<\/strong> I have to say, it was an amazing cast. One of the things about the screenplay was it had a lot of parts and I really wanted to have a full and deep and rich cast of the best actors that I could possibly find from the U.K. And I was very, very blessed that they all agreed to come because it just felt like every day you were looking around the set seeing six of your favorite actors about to go on, so it was an absolute treat from my point. It was Tom Hollander or Jamie or Cosmo or Stephen Dillane or Katherine Waterston. Absolutely brilliant.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: How on earth did you recreate Medieval London? There is that huge scene where you\u2019re crossing the bridge.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tGREENGRASS:<\/strong> Well, we built a section of the bridge and then obviously you set extend it with the help of Murray Barber, our visual effects supremo. And every day I\u2019d go on set and say, \u201cMurray, see, we\u2019ve got that bit of bridge we\u2019ve built. But can we extend it?\u201d And he had this phrase\u2026 Joanna Kaye, one of the producers, my wife, made him a T-shirt at the end saying, \u201cWhat could possibly go wrong?\u201d Because that was his phrase. I\u2019d say, \u201cMurray, we need such and such doing. Is that all right?\u201d And he said, \u201cWhat could possibly go wrong?\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"The<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tL to R: Thomasin McKenzie as Alyce, Jamie Bell as John Ball and Andrew Garfield as Ploughman in \u2018The Uprising\u2019<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFocus Features<\/p>\n

\n\tThat actually became the phrase of the film because it spread around all of us around the camera. Because the thing about this film was it had grand scale and grand ambitions and it was a miracle, really, what we all achieved, thanks to Andrew and all the other actors, but also thanks to the crew.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe short answer is for London Bridge, we built a section of it, actually which was a very cunning set because it had two sides so you could run through one and then you\u2019d come back the other way, and it was as if it was the other. It was what they call a French reverse. I don\u2019t know why \u2014 it\u2019s always called in cinema a French reverse. But basically, it\u2019s a clever way you build a set, so you get two sets out of one, it\u2019s a way of getting an expensive set for a very cheap price. But it requires you to move your actors and extras in a certain way and shoot in a certain way to get the benefits of it. And then you set extend so obviously there\u2019s a lot of beautiful visual effects work, which is stunningly authentic, I think, to make this film work.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: Andrew, what\u2019s a scene that you look back on as not only just a challenge but also something that really personally moved you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tGARFIELD:<\/strong> There\u2019s a lot in this film to be honest, but the first one that comes to mind is probably a moment where Tyler is leading his group in a conversation with the king for the first time. And Cosmo is so incredible in that scene, as is everybody. And then there\u2019s a moment where the Ploughman is forced to speak against his will and against his own desire. And what comes out is something unintended and something spontaneous just from the soul.<\/p>\n

\n\tGREENGRASS:<\/strong> It\u2019s incredibly moving.<\/p>\n

\n\tGARFIELD:<\/strong> The way that Paul wrote it, very simple language but very poetic. And a strange opportunity because in this moment, the Ploughman and everyone involved is seeing the king as a messenger of god himself so there\u2019s something deeply overwhelming about being face-to-face with this almost mythic creature that has been promised, that will be a sword of justice for his people. There\u2019s something deeply profound in that moment for these common folk. And yeah, I think you can feel it in the frame, you can feel it in that scene. There\u2019s something magical happening when someone finally gets to ask the big man for basic human dignity. It\u2019s touching. It\u2019s moving.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"The<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tL to R: Thomasin McKenzie as Alyce and Jamie Bell as John Ball in \u2018The Uprising\u2019<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFocus Features<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: You can feel his humility in that moment where he really doesn\u2019t want to shine and stand out and that\u2019s why it\u2019s so poignant as well. And just the psychic shock they must all have been in after everything that happened.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tGREENGRASS:<\/strong> Massively so. And that\u2019s why to me that coda really works because out of that psychic shock, how do you maintain\u2026 You can\u2019t go back. You can\u2019t go back to what you were because you\u2019ve gone through this experience. And that\u2019s why there\u2019s a very famous book, a historian\u2019s book, a historical account of the 14th century, it\u2019s called A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchman. An absolutely brilliant book. Particularly it talks about the Peasants\u2019 Revolt a lot, how people\u2019s perception of themselves changed. For the first time in history, ordinary folk began to feel that what they felt about the unfairness of the world mattered. And that feeling never went away, it stayed there in the stories they told about outlaws. But ultimately, it echoed down the centuries, hence the title of Distant Mirror, and became the enlightenment, became the growth of individual rights, individual representation.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat did the American Revolution become? America threw off the king. No kings. We\u2019ll live in our own republic, just exactly like the Ploughman says at the end. These events that are so unknown in America actually are foundational really, historians would argue.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Uprising is scheduled for a theatrical release in the United States on\u00a0September 10, 2026, by Focus Features. Jason Blum is producing through Blumhouse Atomic Monster, alongside Gregory Goodman, Joanna Kaye and Greengrass. Lars Sylvest produced through Thank You Pictures and Joe Neurauter through Supernix.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[Warning: The following contains some mild spoilers for The Uprising] Into this time where so many might feel…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":673157,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[263],"tags":[24639,118045,73337,18,117,19,17,33339,327,33340,73340,30106,26597],"class_list":["post-673156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-andrew-garfield","tag-awardsfeature","tag-cosmo-jarvis","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-katherine-waterston","tag-movies","tag-paul-greengrass","tag-the-uprising","tag-thomasin-mckenzie","tag-tom-hollander"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117215795014013806","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=673156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673156\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/673157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=673156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=673156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=673156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}