MG: I’ve always been interested with Jesus films anyway, so whatever had happened I would have been very interested in it. But it was a massive privilege to be asked to be involved even in a small way.
When you are someone like me, obsessed with the New Testament, and you have spent years pouring over the text - I am a bit of New Testament nerd - that means that sometimes you might be able to spot something that they haven’t been able to spot. So I was able to go through the script and say ‘have you thought about that?’ or ‘have you noticed this?’.
But having seen the completed production, I was just so relieved by how good it was, because obviously there is that anxiety at the early stage, before any scripts have even been written. You do think ‘oh gosh, I am going to be attaching my name to something that could potentially be awful!’
But when I saw the tapes for the early edits I almost burst into tears because I was thrilled by how good it had come out.
CT: What would you say to people who are sceptical of a BBC rendition of the Passion and fear it is not going to be biblically accurate?
Frank (Deasy, writer) and others involved have worked hard to make sure it is faithful to the New Testament story but even though it is a famous and very compelling story, they haven’t let that lead them into a wooden, literalistic re-telling.
They have used their imagination, and any dramatic re-telling of the Passion story was going to have to be imaginative to some extent anyway. But I personally don’t think it ever crosses the boundary into which there is anything unacceptable.
