here<\/a>), caught up with Greste and Roxburgh to hear their thoughts on bringing the story to the big screen, if there was a catharsis in that process, and how their respective views on filmmaking and journalism have shifted since.<\/p>\nPeter, how does it feel seeing aspects of your life being told here? Is it cathartic at all? Surreal?<\/strong><\/p>\nPeter Greste<\/strong>:\u00a0 It’s not catharsis.\u00a0 That’s not the word for it.\u00a0 I’ve processed this a lot.\u00a0 I’ve written a book about it.\u00a0 I’ve given countless lectures and talks about it.\u00a0 I’ve built a career on it.\u00a0 So I kind of processed it pretty solidly.\u00a0 Pretty thoroughly.\u00a0 Also, I was really wrestling before I saw the film with how I was supposed to feel about it.\u00a0 Everyone asks that question, “How does it feel?” And I realised that it’s not me.\u00a0 What I’m watching is an artist.\u00a0 An extraordinary artistic interpretation of that story, with literally dozens and dozens of creatives who’ve all had their own input into this product and work of art.\u00a0 And what comes out is a really wonderful, extraordinary, powerful, genuinely authentic rendering of what I went through.\u00a0 But it’s not me.<\/p>\nHaving said that, I also didn’t really expect just how it would wallop me.\u00a0 Watching it for the first time, what Rox (Richard Roxburgh) does so incredibly well, and what the film achieves, is a kind of emotional intensity that nails things like that.\u00a0 The sheer confusion around the arrest, the kind of claustrophobia in the cells, the frustrating nature of the trial, and the weirdness of my release…all those elements are right in there.\u00a0 And also the sheer tragedy of Kate’s story* as well.\u00a0 I hadn’t really engaged with Kate’s story in anyway of the same extent.\u00a0 And seeing that on screen was quite tough.<\/p>\n
*Kate Peyton was a British journalist and senior producer for the BBC Johannesburg who was killed in a shooting incident in Somalia in 2005; Greste had accompanied her to her hotel only hours before the shooting occurred<\/em>.<\/p>\nI spoke to Kriv the other day, and I mentioned to him that I was surprised at some of the depictions of the prison life.\u00a0 For you, Richard, was there anything that you learned about Peter’s experience that you were surprised to hear?<\/strong><\/p>\nRichard Roxburgh<\/strong>: I think the story is full of all kinds of weird and surprising corners.\u00a0 Part of what sets the film apart is that it’s an exploration of those things as much as anything.\u00a0 So, in that way, it defies a lot of the prison tropes.\u00a0 It’s really quite beautiful to see the relationships he developed with the people around him.\u00a0 The relationship with the warden of the prison is such an odd, but quite beautiful thing that I haven’t seen on film.\u00a0 \u00a0There’s these kind of fascinating angles that I found interesting to be immersed in.<\/p>\nWhat was the collaboration process like between the two of you? Was anything off limits? Did you have to interpret certain things? How was that relationship in bringing Peter to screen for you, Richard?<\/strong><\/p>\nRichard Roxburgh<\/strong>: There was no effort to mimic Peter outward.\u00a0 There’s this essence of Peter that’s really important.\u00a0 There’s a kind of calm quality to him, and, for one of a better word, there’s a sense of Northern European otherness about him as well.\u00a0 It’s odd talking about this stuff with (Peter).\u00a0 But I found those really interesting tendrils that an actor will pull on to find a character…it was never about that.\u00a0 It was never going to be a bunch of manifestations.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.theaureview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/TC-703x395.jpg\")
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We’ve seen journalism come under siege in many aspects.\u00a0 Do you look at this film as a personal story first, more than a political one?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\nPeter Greste<\/strong>: How do I answer that? First and foremost, it’s a damn good drama.\u00a0 I really don’t want anybody thinking that they’re going to go along and see this sort of polemic lecture.\u00a0 This is a socially responsible film that you have to go and see to appreciate written attacks on leading freedom.\u00a0 Those themes are shot through the narrative.\u00a0 But it’s just a brilliant piece of filmmaking, and a really intense, thought-provoking drama that works on all sorts of levels.<\/p>\nAs a journalist, what I’m trying to do is draw out meaning from stories, from narrative, from things that really took place.\u00a0 And the whole reason I wrote the book was to try and make not just sense of the kind of proximate experience of being in prison, but also place it in some kind of historical context and unthread the politics of what we’re experiencing.\u00a0 To see if I could understand it in a much larger global narrative.\u00a0 And the more deeply I thought about it, the more I realised that this isn’t what happened to us.\u00a0 It was a really visceral, vivid example of what was taking place the world over when it comes to a much wider assault on journalism.<\/p>\n
At the time I wrote the book, back in 2017, and soon after when Carmel Travers (producer) optioned it, I remember saying to her that we needed to get the movie out quickly.\u00a0 Because the longer we move away from 9\/11, which is when I really think the narrative began, I felt the more we’d grow up and journalism could recover its role in society and the rhetoric around terrorism and national security would start to feel old .\u00a0 I was tragically wrong in ways that I never really expected.<\/p>\n
So if (this film) helps trigger conversations, if it makes people think a little bit more deeply about that stuff, then we would have done something important and valuable.\u00a0 But, again to underline that point, it’s not primarily a film about press freedom.\u00a0 It’s primarily a film about the really surreal experience of a journalist who was caught up in a bigger political drama and about the relationships and dynamics of that prison cell.<\/p>\n
Looking at filmmaking and journalism, for the both of you, has your aspect of the other medium changed?<\/strong><\/p>\nRichard Roxburgh<\/strong>: I’m definitely more attuned to the world of journalism.\u00a0 To the encroachments on that world.\u00a0 I’m so shocked at what has become of the core profession that journalists, from being protected under the Geneva Convention, are now regarded in any war as an enemy combatant.\u00a0 And so they’re deliberately targeted.\u00a0 You only have to look at Gaza to see that this is the case.\u00a0 It’s happening in the Ukraine.\u00a0 It’s everywhere.<\/p>\nThe fact that everybody’s a “journalist” now, because everybody has thumbs, and I don’t think that’s a safe place to be.\u00a0 There has to be some arrows drawn.\u00a0 There has to be some deeper understanding of what it is, or was, that journalists actually did before the world changed.\u00a0 And hopefully we can find our way back to that.<\/p>\n
Peter Greste<\/strong>: I’ve come away with a far deeper respect for the craft making and the really deep thoughtfulness that these guys have put into it.\u00a0 Listening to some of the conversations between Rox and Kriv, and some of the conversations that I’ve been involved with Peter Duncan (screenwriter) and Kriv and Rox, as well, and seeing how those conversations somehow seeped into the DNA of the film to create something that was really impactful has been really interesting to watch.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.theaureview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/thecorrespondent_1_aff_web-703x395.jpg\")
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Richard, there’s so much happening with your performance from an internal point of view.\u00a0 Does that come from conversations with Peter? Or are you taking something else on to emulate that isolation and fear we’re seeing on screen?<\/strong><\/p>\nRichard Roxburgh<\/strong>: Peter was fantastic support.\u00a0 He was a supporter of the project from day dot.\u00a0 He was there at the first read through.\u00a0 I could see the way he was with people.\u00a0 I could see the impact he had in a room.\u00a0 Actors are constantly scanning and looking for stuff, so that was incredibly helpful.\u00a0 I could also message him if need be with weird questions I had along the way.<\/p>\nI guess it’s just a matter of trying to find your way into the singular reality of the environment and what (he’s) going through.\u00a0 It was a tough shoot, which was helpful, and I don’t know if this was deliberate or not, but I was very isolated.\u00a0 I isolated myself during filming.\u00a0 I’m usually quite social on film sets.\u00a0 I’ll have lunch with the crew and chat.\u00a0 I didn’t do any of that on (The Correspondent).\u00a0 In a sense, it was kind of painting myself into a very quiet corner, which was odd, lonely and solitary.\u00a0 I guess because it was easier to get to the places I needed to get to.<\/p>\n
Peter Greste<\/strong>: Was that a conscious choice?<\/p>\nRichard Roxburgh<\/strong>: I don’t think so.\u00a0 I think it just came about because I think otherwise I would have found if I’m chatting and laughing it up with the crew and actors at lunchtime, and then have to go to these really deep, dark places at times…It’s just too big a stretch.\u00a0 I feel like I would have snapped.<\/p>\nPeter Greste<\/strong>: I’m wondering whether you thought that you needed to do that for creative output? Or whether it was you just didn’t want to engage with people?<\/p>\nRichard Roxburgh<\/strong>: I can’t remember deliberately thinking….I think it just happened as a result of the emotional imperative.\u00a0 And also because so much of it was done in a first person way.\u00a0 Yeah, there was no relief.\u00a0 There was no downtime.<\/p>\nWhen you read the script, and you see what both Kriv and Richard are doing, is there anything that you perhaps want to alter or heighten in a certain way? Or something that’s an absolute must for you in being relayed on screen?<\/strong><\/p>\nPeter Greste<\/strong>: I found everyone involved with this, even the engagement I had with set designers and costume designers, there was a level of curiosity, genuine interest and empathy all the way throughout.\u00a0 I didn’t feel as though, at any point, I needed to worry about what they were going to do with (my story).\u00a0 I kind of found a degree of trust that they were going to take the story and create something worthwhile with it.\u00a0 The only thing that I was worried about, and I spoke to Kriv about this, that they would flatten out the kind of stereotypes around brown characters and prove, very explicitly, that they would break the prison (genre) tropes.\u00a0 It broke those narratives and stereotypes.\u00a0 So, you know, I didn’t have to explicitly say, “You need to make sure that these guys are respected.”<\/p>\nThe one thing that I really did want, and I’m glad you brought it up, was I wanted the tension between me and my family articulated.\u00a0 I didn’t want the family to be seen as a villain.\u00a0 I wanted the audience to see where they were coming from.\u00a0 We had two very different world views.\u00a0 I don’t expect everyone to necessarily agree with the family, but more to see and recognise the tension of the fundamental differences of how we both understood and related to the world.\u00a0 And the really difficult experiences that was created in prison.<\/p>\n
Richard Roxburgh<\/strong>: Yeah, it’s interesting.\u00a0 Peter has this way of talking about the way that his family have perceived the film.\u00a0 It’s like somebody describing an elephant, and you have your own picture of what the elephant looks like, because you can see your part of it.\u00a0 So the experience that Peter’s mum and dad had during his imprisonment was one very particular part of this element of their world.\u00a0 So when they come and see the film, it’s nothing like (Peter’s) elephant.\u00a0 It’s such a strange experience.\u00a0 I feel like what (Peter) is talking about there with that experience is that they both have a version of the elephant.\u00a0 I can see what it looks like, and they’re on the other side saying something different.<\/p>\nPeter Greste<\/strong>: Yeah, that’s a really good way of articulating it.\u00a0 I remember having conversations with Peter Duncan about that.\u00a0 About needing people to connect with the family.\u00a0 To see and understand the piece of the elephant.<\/p>\n
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