Blitz: Saoirse Ronan’s World War Two drama launches London Film Festival

Actor Graham noted the film takes a slightly different perspective from many other films set in World War Two, partly because the lead character is a mixed-race child.

“As a kid, I was used to watching these wonderful black-and-white films with my nana – ‘Cor blimey, guv’na, let’s push through the war’,” Graham joked, adopting an exaggerated Cockney accent.

“We were brought up watching those films, and they were beautiful films, but I’ve never seen this vision that Steve brought to the screen, this perspective… a mixed-race child in a war film set in the Blitz.”

But when asked if he viewed the film as an opportunity to correct the way the Blitz is traditionally viewed, Sir Steve replied: “I’m not interested in correcting anything. I’m not a reactionary. I’m an artist.

“I love to work on things which mean something to me,” he continued. “What was so interesting to me about the idea of this landscape was that it was about a working class family. This was a family drama as well as a historical epic.”