This story about Paul Greengrass and “22 July” first appeared in the Actors/Directors/Screenwriters issue of TheWrap’s Oscar magazine.
Paul Greengrass remembers the moment when he knew he was going to make “22 July,” his gripping film about the right-wing terrorist attacks carried out on a Norwegian government center and an island summer camp in 2011. It came when he was reading the court testimony of Anders Behring Breivik, the white nationalist whose views led him to kill 77 people, most of them teenagers.
“He was talking about how the elites have betrayed us, democracy is a sham, we’re being forced to accept multiculturalism against our will, nationalism is being eroded, et cetera,” said the British director, whose previous films have included “Captain Phillips,” “United 93” and three Jason Bourne movies.