'The Uprising' Special

For all that

you've taken from us,

all that we've lost, So, Paul, you direct this film.

You grew up hearing this story.

For those who are not familiar with the 1381 Peasants' Revolt, how does this compare to what you learned in history?

Well, I mean, it's the same story, you know? I think...

I think what was amazing to me was when I sat down to write it was how contemporary it all felt, you know? It's not distant history at all.

It really felt like our tomorrow, you know? A world divided between the rich oligarchs and the rest of us ragingly angry at a system that's rigged against us.

That all felt pretty contemporary.

And then, you know, it's also...

I wanted to make a big historical epic like Gladiator or Braveheart, one of those kind of movies, because I love those movies and I'd never, ever tried to make one.

So, you know, you need a grand spectacle, you need history to turn, you need, you know, intimate characters, you know, like Andrew's character and Thomason's character.

You need some kind of a love story in the middle of it.

And characters whose destinies you get, you know, caught up in.

You want them to...

You want the march to succeed.

And so that was really what drew me to it.

That brings me to your character, Andrew.

Farmhand, if you will.

He says, I'm not a priest, but yet he obviously has something that's driving him.

Where does the courage come from for him?

I think the courage comes from having nothing to lose.

I think we find these characters at the beginning of the story kind of worn down to a nub of their humanity.

And there's a kind of despair and anguish and agony that gives them a path towards very, very courageous acts because it's acts of survival.

Not just for... for their bodies and for their ability to breathe in and out, but to have a life that has some form of meaning and some form of dignity.