Biography for
Steve McQueen (III) More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

1969, London, England, UK

Birth Name

Steve Rodney McQueen

Height

6' 1" (1.85 m)

Trade Mark

Dialogue scenes shot in a single take or a series of long takes

Trivia

Was made the Official War Artist for Iraq in association with the Imperial War Museum in 2003.

He was awarded the OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in the 2002 Queen's Birthday Honours List for his services to the Arts.

Won the Turner Prize in 1999 for his film installation work and exhibition at the Institute of Comtemporary Arts [ICA], London, England.

Attended Chelsea School of Art, London, 1989-90; Goldsmith's College, London, 1990-93 & Tisch School of the Arts, New York University, New York, 1993-94.

Fine artist who works primarily with film and photography.

He was awarded the CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in the 2011 Queen's New Years Honours List for his services to Visual Arts.

Personal Quotes

I'm essentially quite happy, but, for some reason, I have done a lot of stuff that is dark. I don't know why that is and I don't question it. I don't really think you have a choice where you go as an artist.

Access to sexual content is everywhere and that access has an influence on us every day, whether we're aware of it or not. Sex is being sold to you with your soda, even with your breakfast cereal.

[on if working in film is still exciting] I've seen behind the curtain. It's a bit Wizard of Oz-like. I admit I was excited about Cannes when Hunger launched there and then that was a success and I went to Hollywood for the first time and, my God, I was thrilled, you know, seeing the big letters: HOLLYWOOD. But after a few dinners with people and drinks parties, you realize it's all about rolling up your sleeves. I got on the Paramount lot for the first time and, yes, I saw gladiators walking by and elephants and then you see the scaffolding and the trucks and it is all just work.... It's not what I make films for. So I wish I was still a punter, going to the cinema on a weekend. Dreams are nice, but now I'm a bit back down to earth with the whole world of film and dreams fade. I don't want to be down on it but, if I'm honest, it's very disappointing. Like when you realize there's no Father Christmas... It's all just false, isn't it? I recently met some people who I looked up to and admired and I found out they were just normal - there are no gods out there.

[on how similar the world of art is to film] Film is way different. When you're 20ft tall on a massive screen and you're seeing people's lives played out on it, it's different from a nice painting. Film is important; it can be more than reportage or a novel - it creates images people have never seen before, never imagined they'd see, maybe because they needed someone else to imagine them.

I could never make American movies - they like happy endings. I made "Shame" in America, but it's not a Hollywood movie. I'm about challenging people. Like, properly challenging them and their assumptions. Audiences make their minds up about people they see on screen, just like they do in real life. That's what fascinates me in film. You see a character and have to think: is this person different to what I assumed he was when I first saw him? ... I'm certainly not who people think I am. I always do whatever I want to do and my films are personal to me. "Hunger" was about my youth, the loss of innocence when I realized what my country was doing, what was going on. Brandon in "Shame" is my response to being lost - I've not been there in the sense of sexual addiction, but I've been lost.

I worked with scriptwriter Abi Morgan on "Shame" and she's brilliant, but she always knows where her stories and sentences are going. I don't want that; I like to start a sentence and let it take me, let it flow, so it can go anywhere. That's how I think things are in life, where we don't have a script. So I don't do storyboards. The characters and narrative dictate how I film a scene.

[on "Shame" being rated NC-17 in the U.S.] When I first heard mention of NC-17, I thought they were a rap band. I didn't give a toss about that because I like the idea of doing something no one is actually talking about. It was the same with Hunger. Want, urge, need - these are the things that create drama.

Art can't fix anything. It can just observe and portray. What's important is that it becomes an object, a thing you can see and talk about and refer to. A film is an object around which you can have a debate, more so than the incident itself. It's someone's view of an incident, an advanced starting point.