In Blitz, Steve McQueen shows wartime London through the eyes of a child.

It was the single photograph that set Oscar-winning director Steve McQueen on his path to making The Blitz. As a Londoner, he always thought about the German bombing of the city during the Second World War. Reminders of this are everywhere.

But the spark of inspiration was the image of a little boy on a train platform with a large suitcase. Stories inspired by evacuation are not uncommon, but this child was Black. Who is he, McQueen wondered, and what is his story?

The film, which opens in cinemas on Friday and streams on Apple TV+ on November 22, tells the story of George, a 9-year-old biracial child from East London whose life with his mother Rita (Saoirse Ronan) and grandfather is upended. war. Like many children of that time, for his safety he was put on a train to the village. But he jumps off and begins the long, dangerous journey back to his mom, encountering all sorts of people and situations that paint a revealing and emotional picture of that moment.

SEARCHING FOR GEORGE AND FINDING A STAR

When McQueen finished the script, he thought to himself, “Not bad.” Then he began to worry: did George exist? Is there a person in the world who can play this role? Through an open casting call, they found Elliot Heffernan, a 9-year-old boy living near London whose only experience was in school plays. He was the genie in Aladdin.

“He had the quietness about him, a true silent film star,” McQueen said. “You wanted to know what he was thinking, so you leaned in. That’s the quality of a movie star: being present in his absence.”

Elliott is now 11. When he was cast in the role, he had not yet heard about the evacuation and assumed the set would consist of “about 100 people.” But he soon found his footing, popping in and out of little vignettes along George’s odyssey of stunts, slaps and all. Elliott, for his part, preferred stunt days.

“It’s just more exciting,” Elliott said.

His on-screen mother and co-star Ronan, who vividly remembers a strange childhood experience on set, took him under her wing. Now he’s not only getting rave reviews for his performance, but he’s already booked another film (though he can’t talk about it just yet). Another bonus: He completely impressed his teachers with his knowledge of World War II.

BUT CAN SHE SING?

Ronan told her agent she wanted to take a break after The Outrun, with one caveat: Steve McQueen. “He was like, ‘Well, about that…’,” Ronan laughed.

“I was really excited by the idea that a love story that would exist in such a war epic would involve a child and his mother,” Ronan said. “It was a story set during World War II, and it was destined to survive. It had to focus on the communities back home and the ongoing war they faced every day they walked out their door.”

But McQueen needed a singer, and Ronan was an unknown quantity. They hired a vocal coach to visit her on set in Australia.

“I’ll never forget when they called me and said, ‘Steve, she can not only sing, but she’s only going to get better,’” McQueen said. “I was very happy to call her back and say, ‘You got it.’

Both Ronan and Elliott will sing alongside Paul Weller, the English Jam and Style Council rock star, in his first acting role as kindly Grandpa George. Rita also gets a solo show on the original song “Winter Coat”, written by Nicholas Britell and Taura Stinson and inspired by McQueen’s late father. She performs it during a live radio broadcast at the weapons factory where she works.

BASIS OF WAR

Show that the munitions factory was important to the Blitz. Women are not often the center of attention in war films. When that happens, McQueen says, it’s a crying wife or girlfriend, someone offering a cup of tea. He knew that this was not reality.

“Women (were) the emotional and physical backbone of the war,” he said. “They were dealing with their aging parents. They were evacuating children. And then they went to the munitions plant to make rockets and to the airplane hangars to make airplanes.”

USING THE CONVENTIONAL TO SHOW THE UNCONVENTIONAL

Some critics have called Blitz McQueen’s most conventional or conventional film. In his opinion, this misses the point.

“There are classic images, there is a classic situation. If I can find a better word, it is, to some extent, a Brothers Grimm fairy tale,” he said. “But what it shows is completely revolutionary. He uses the traditional to show the unconventional.”

This means taking viewers to places they’ve never been: Stepney Green tube station, where East Londoners sheltered from bombs; ammunition factory; the luxurious Café de Paris, where a different class of Londoners enjoy oysters and champagne while the house band plays “Oh Johnny” as the bombs fall; and the Pipe Shelter, where flooding killed 66 people.

“Blitz” also introduces viewers to people they’ve probably never heard of: Mickey Davis (played by Lee Gill), a man known as “Mickey the Dwarf” who turned the Spitalfields Fruit and Wool Exchange into an orphanage; and Ife (Benjamin Clementine), a Nigerian air raid warden who has a connection to George, who was also inspired by a real person.

Everything in “Blitz” is taken from historical facts. And much of it is seen through the eyes of a black child. George, McQueen said, is not Oliver Twist.

“It’s like comparing me to Prince Harry,” McQueen said. “Really, really? But this is connected with something else. It’s whatever it is. But what really interests me is images and stories that haven’t been told before.”

SEEING LONDON DIFFERENTLY

Ronan lives not too far from East London and is often reminded of his past in trivial ways every day. A bougie park where everyone walks their dogs? This only happened because rows of houses were destroyed, she said. But like everyone else, she emerged from the Blitz with an even greater appreciation for her adopted community and neighbors, some of whom had lived in their homes their entire lives.

“There is a real commitment to this place,” she said. “Knowing that it still exists in London in small pockets means you’re kind of here to honor someone’s history.”

It was an important experience for McQueen to discover and tell stories we haven’t heard before, much like he did with Solomon Northup in the Oscar-winning film 12 Years a Slave.

“The Blitz is something that we put a lot of our national identity into, you know, the spirit of the Blitz, who we are and all that, our finest hour and all that,” he said. “What I was interested in was shining a light on those who weren’t in the conversation. When I look at London now, I feel enormous pride. I’m very proud of the contribution of all these people and the film: we allowed people to see us.”

DESIRE FOR THE HEART

McQueen does not lose sleep over important events: floods, fires, the destruction of the Café de Paris. But his emotions bother him.

“Cinema is the heart,” he said. “What gave me sleepless nights was love, and the fact that people felt it, and it was palpable in the family… At the end of the day, this film is about love. LOVE.”

Film festival audiences responded just as he had hoped. Soon everyone else will have the opportunity to go on this journey with George.

“It got a very visceral reaction from people,” McQueen said. “I think there wasn’t a dry eye in the house in London and New York. That’s what cinema can do, and that’s what I wanted. This also applies to the public: you can see yourself through the eyes of a child.”