Steve McQueen: How my father’s death inspired my latest passion project

Steve McQueen
Sir Steve McQueen says his dad’s death inspired his project
Dave Benett

Oscar-winner Sir Steve McQueen has said his latest “passion project”, a two-minute public health film raising awareness of prostate cancer among black men, was inspired by his father’s death from the disease at 67.

The film, Embarrassed, tells its audience that one in four black men will be diagnosed with the disease and one in 12 will die from it. Its cast includes Chiwetel Ejiofor, who starred in Sir Steve’s 12 Years a Slave, which won the best picture Oscar in 2014.

Sir Steve told ES Magazine: “My father died of prostate cancer 15 years ago. He was 67. And to find out that if he had been diagnosed earlier, he would have been more likely to survive, I mean…

“There’s a 98 per cent success rate if you catch it early. So it’s upsetting that we didn’t have this knowledge, although the knowledge was out there. But it’s not deemed as important enough to be given a platform where the broader public know about it. So that’s why, for me, this was a sort of passion project.”

He paid tribute to his friend, fashion designer Virgil Abloh, who recently died from cancer, saying: “If there’s anything we can take from his life, it’s that he wasn’t about tomorrow, he was about today.”

Sir Steve also revealed a close relative falling ill had made him reassess life. He said: “That was interesting because what it made me do was look at myself in a way and realise that we’re not here forever. And that set me free. I was so devastated by his illness but it propelled me to realise that I’ve got nothing to lose.”

Sir Steve, who grew up in west London and now lives in Amsterdam, said black men had to take it upon themselves to look out for each other’s health because other “people don’t care about black men”.

He said: “So we’re forced to put upon ourselves to make that happen. We have to look after our health and our father’s, brother’s and uncle’s health, because the Government won’t do it — obviously.”

The filmmaker said the situation has been made worse by the pandemic, citing Health Secretary Sajid Javid’s review of claims medical device used to measure blood oxygen levels are less accurate in darker skinned patients.

He said that kind of racial bias meant “black people died because of negligence, ignorance and not caring”.

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