Senna - Asif Kapadia interview

ASIF Kapadia talks about the making of his brilliant documentary on the life and death of Ayrton Senna and how he came to fall in love with the artistry of the sporting icon while making it. He also gives insights into the humanity of Senna, the problems he faced with F1 politics and why it proved to be hugely emotional showing the film to his family and to press critics in Brazil. He was speaking at a UK round table.

Q. So, when did you first fall in love with the artistry of Ayrton Senna?
Asif Kapadia: I’m a sport fan. So, I have always watched everything… football, cricket, rugby, Ryder Cup, you name it, darts. I used to watch racing. Formula One was always on. The genius is that it’s on at lunchtime on a Sunday, so I remember the Senna-Prost rivalry, I remember staying up late at night to listen to the climaxes of the races in Japan on Radio 2 or wherever it used to be back in the day. And I was watching Imola live. So, I had seen enough to know that period and know that era but I wouldn’t have said in any way that I was an authority on Formula One. I wasn’t the biggest Senna fan. I liked McLaren, I remember liking McLaren at the time.

It was really then five or six years ago when James Gay-Rees, the producer, got in touch with me with Manish Pandey, the writer, to say: “Are you interested in doing this film about Senna?” I’m a drama director, and I’ve never done a documentary before, so straight away I thought it was an interesting idea and something totally different. At the time I was making a film in the North Pole, in the Arctic, so it was one of those things where you say: “God, anything to get me out of the cold!” Essentially, I thought there would be quite a lot of post production on this film, so I thought it was going to be quite a different way of working, so I liked that challenge. Honestly, the answer to your question would be that it’s while making the film, while looking at the footage, spending years looking at thousands of hours of material… the more I saw on Senna, the more I liked him.

Now, the worry is often that you make a film about a person or something, a subject, and as you go along you kind of like it less and less and you’re lying, you’re faking it. But actually he is amazing and he is great and therefore I was quite glad to not know that much about him because I feel like I’ve been on this big journey that, in a way, I want a lot of non-Formula One fans to go on. He does transcend the support and he works on so many levels that the fans… I can totally see why he has so many children named after him, and why people really love Senna.

But then the other thing is that I understand why he is such a huge thing to Brazil and what’s been interesting is taking the film to the US, for example, and showing the film in America, where they don’t watch Formula One and they don’t know who he is. They don’t know how it ends. So, it’s really amazing to be in a cinema full of people who don’t know the ending and there’s this moment where they go: “Oh no, what’s happening? They’re talking in the past tense… something’s about to happen. Why has it all slowed down? Why are we going into such detail at Imola?” It’s electric. And this is in Middle America, in Mormon territory, because Sundance is in Salt Lake City, so you could really feel that the religious element was really speaking to them, when he speaks about God. So, the answer to your question is that it’s really during the making of it. I just think he’s amazing.

Q. You said there was a script, so what was the script like?
Asif Kapadia: It wasn’t a script. Manish is the writer because he is the guy who was a big fan. He’s the guy who’s seen every race, who has read every book, who has an amazing brain for detail. He’s a back surgeon and he’s a Cambridge graduate but this is his first film. So, when I came on the project there was an outline, a 20-page document which dealt with the golden age – the Mansell, Senna, Piquet and Prost period. And essentially what happened during the development of the film was bit by bit we said: “We can’t do it… we can’t have this many characters. We can’t have that many great races. It’s just going to get a bit boring for the non fans and we’re still going to have to do a cut down.”

So, the script, the editing, the interviews, the research was all happening at the same time. It wasn’t like a drama where you have a screenplay and go and shoot it. This was, this is the idea, and what Manish was able to do because he knows the subject so well was to look at a sequence and say: “We’re not showing this part of his character. This is really important, we’ve got to find…” So, then I’d say: “OK, well what race shows that? What scene can we find?” And then we’d send our researchers off in Japan, in Rio, in Sao Paolo, in France, in Italy and we’d go into Biggin Hill, into Bernie Ecclestone’s archive, to find a scene that visualised what Manish on paper felt we had to show.

Q. You’ve made a documentary that is actually a drama…
Asif Kapadia: Yeah, I’m a drama director and I wanted to make a drama… that was always my dream was to say: “Look, I don’t want to make a television documentary!” But all of my material was TV. There’s not a frame in there that I’ve shot. So, the challenge was to be stupid enough or brave enough to not shoot anything and call yourself a director [laughs]. I said: “I think there’s something original that we can do here.” All of the films – When We Were Kings, Man on Wire, Touching the Void – they all have talking heads, they all have interviews and so it was quite tough the process of doing it because everyone… none of the executives – Working Title haven’t made a doc, Universal haven’t made a doc, the producer hadn’t made a doc, the writer hadn’t made a film, I’ve never made a doc… our researchers and our editors had, but we were all new to it.

So, everyone was like: “Go and get Norman Mailer. Who is the Norman Mailer in this world? And interview them!” But I was saying: “I don’t think we need it. I really don’t think we need it.” But I was a lone voice in a way and so the only way to show it was to go and cut the film and show people. So, we’d just work on the film and the first cut was seven hours, then it was five hours, then three… we had a really good two hour cut but it was still a bit too long for non fans, I suppose, and we had a budget that would go to 90 minutes.

Actually, another important detail is that when I was asked to do the film the budget had been put together in a more conventional documentary way, so there was 40 minutes of interviews, talking heads, and 40 minutes of Bernie’s archive. And I cut this film which was seven hours of archive! Now, every minute over 40 was something like £30,000 or something crazy. So, we were like £5 million over budget! I was accused of doing everything I could to get fired [laughs]! But everyone laughed in the right places and everyone was crying by the end and you knew it worked, it was just way too long. But the great thing about being able to work with Working Title and Eric Fellner, who was very supportive of the film, was that they just gave us time to go away and cut. They’d keep saying: “It’s too long, go away and cut.” So, we’d go away for another few weeks and cut and bring it down, down, down without losing the heart of it and the gut of it.

Q. Will the long cut surface?
Asif Kapadia: Do you know, I’m asked this a lot. I have a dream that one day, if the film does well enough – and that’s the bottom line with movies, obviously – then maybe there will be a way that we can somehow go back and talk to Bernie again to have permission to show a longer version on a DVD or something. Who knows what it could be. Obviously, the numbers have to add up. That’s the bottom line. But if enough people ask, I just hope we can… it might just be a few one off screenings around the world where you can show it in a confined space. You know, they’re very protective of their material, so there might be a way of doing that and there’s some amazing scenes that we couldn’t put in the film that we might one day see.

Q: Did you do any interviews for the film itself?
Asif Kapadia: Loads! I just had to say to the cameramen: “Make it look really good, I’m never going to use it”. But I said there’s a good chance they’ll be on the DVD, which they are, which a hell of a lot of people have already seen, and which more people hopefully will see. We interviewed… okay, we started off with a list of like, we put stickers up on the wall for like 80 guys – but then one by one said “We don’t need that person, we don’t need them, we don’t need them… in fact, the fewer people we interview the better, because that makes them special.”

So… Frank [Williams], Ron Dennis was a major one, Alain [Prost], Professor Sid Watkins… you know. The voices that you hear in the film are a mixture of interviews done at the time and our own interviews. And the idea was that I almost wanted it to be invisible, you’re not quite sure. So all the journalists are our interviews – Richard Williams, people like that. Ron Dennis was a major one, that was a long interview. Went to his house, spoke to him for a long time. We spoke to all of his team-mates, his mechanics, Jo Ramirez who was the team manager, and who was inbetween – he was the only guy who got along with Senna and Prost – people like that. All of them, we spoke to – his mechanics, his family, his mum, his sister, his brother.

Everyone was like: “Why’d you want to talk to his brother? His brother’s not really got anything to say.” His brother was there, his brother was there at Imola. He was the only family member who was there. His brother was the one who was in a lot of footage. Anyone who was in the footage, I wanted to go and talk to. That was my rule. If they’re in the shots, I want to talk to them, and then we’ll find a way to have their voice, and I can show them at the time. So I didn’t go with some of the obvious journalists that are famous in Formula One – I went with people who I know were holding the microphone, asking the question, who knew Senna, who were there. Which is why the American guy, [John] Bisignano, is there – because you wouldn’t believe how many of the most famous interviews, he’s the guy doing the interview. He’s the one off-camera. And then Reginaldo Leme, is the guy who followed him, was in-camera all the time with the mic. So I love the idea that you hear his voice, but then you see him in Japan ’89, on this TV screen showing the accident – and that guy talking is the guy who’s telling you the story. He knows, he was there.

So, that was a device I wanted to use. And we’ve got a lot on the Blu-ray – there’s like an hour of our interviews. So we know we can give Prost three minutes to talk about something, which you just can’t do in a movie – the movie you still need a bit of a soundbite and get on. Whereas there’s a lot more time to do it in other versions.

Q: What was it like showing the film to his family?
Asif Kapadia: That was the most emotional screening. It was exactly a year ago. We’d finished the cut about this time last year. Bruno was racing, obviously, that year – last year – and he was living in Monaco, so the family were coming over for the Monaco Grand Prix. And it was during Cannes. So we flew over to Cannes, hired a cinema in the middle of the day, and put on a screening for about 15 members of the family. And it was just unbearable – it was the first time we were showing the film to the family, and even when he was winning, even when there are scenes that normally in a theatre get a laugh, there were sobs in the room. And it was just unbearable, and then the lights come up at the ending and you kind of look around and everyone’s in floods of teams.

But then Viviane stood up and hugged us all and just went: “You got it right, you got the right balance between the genius on the track and the humanity of the man.” And yeah they were happy with it, and they loved it, and were supportive. We were worried about what Bruno would – he’s the kid driving the boat, when Senna’s on the boat. And I think the family saw so much footage that they’d never seen before, you know – it was one of those things were they were seeing… [intake of breath] when you see Imola, and I don’t know if they’d ever seen how unhappy he was. So all of this stuff it was like, even people like his family, or Ron, people who knew him, who were there with him, saw things that they’d never seen before. So there was a different level of understanding what happened or what was going on with him at times. But they gave us the absolute thumbs up, they were very supportive.

Q: How about Brazil, the press screening there?
Asif Kapadia: Brazil’s kind of weird. The press screening was unbelievable, because it was during the Brazilian Grand Prix last year – it opened in Japan, then it opened in Brazil. So we had the next test – Formula One journalists. An entire cinema full of Formula One journalists in Brazil. That’s a scary one, right? And I think they really all got behind the film, and I think the word by then had spread, they all knew about the film – so they all turned up, and they all watched it. And the normal question is, why haven’t you put that race in, why didn’t you put in this bit? That’s the biggest gripe the fans have, is why isn’t it longer? And I’ve given the answer, that’s how much money we had! That’s all we were allowed to do, that’s all we could release. But yeah, we got away with it, people like it.

I’m sure there are some French journalists who say that it isn’t fair on Prost, but this rivalry was a real rivalry, there was real animosity, and all we wanted to do was show what was really happening at that time. That’s why I didn’t want to talk about it in hindsight: we’re all perfect mates now aren’t we? We all loved each other. No you didn’t! And it’s totally understandable you didn’t. You are two who are the best at what you do, you happen to be in the same team. You’re the first rivals, you have to do whatever you can psychologically to beat each other. And I’m just going to show what was going on at the time.

And my gut feeling is that that rivalry never went away, it’s still going. French journalists say: “Hey why don’t you put this in…” And look, if a French person made a film about… not that I’m Brazilian but if a French person made a film about Prost, do you think everyone in Brazil is going to love it? It’s just the nature of what it was and why he was so special and why he was a one off.

Q. Does Prost have issues with how he is portrayed?
Asif Kapadia: He had a hell of a lot to say. He’s still there, It’s still going, and that’s why I’m glad that in the DVD we can show more of him, because in the film there isn’t enough time. In a film called Senna the clue is in the title, and we have a Brazilian badge on our sleeve as we were making it. We were making it from Senna’s point of view with Senna narrating it. So if there was a moment we were taking Senna’s side because he was the one telling the story. The family, Ron and Prost were the people we wanted to show the film to before we finished it to say ‘this is what we are doing’. And Bernie, of course. Bernie, as far as I know, I don’t know if he’s seen it yet. He’s got a copy of it, he’s a busy man. We’ve put on screenings many times and he wasn’t able to make it, and Prost was the same thing, so i think there’s this element of ‘do I really want to see it? It’s called Senna, I know what it’s going to be’, but I think because everyone else has seen it he needs to see it. But I don’t know if he has. He has a copy, we tried to set up screenings and he was busy.

Q. you mention showing the film with Senna’s family, was there any contact with Roland Raztenburger, because he features in it…
Asif Kapadia: Yes, it was a case of talking to the family to let them know this was going to happen. But with Roland, I’d spoken to a lot of people: fans, journalists; and very few people have ever seen him speak. Everybody knows he died, everybody knows what he looked like, but we found some footage of him on the track, talking, and we wanted to show that this was a man who was a racing driver, but then the footage we found happened to be him not happy with the car. It was just unbelievable, and it happened throughout, there’s something that happened when we were making this movie in that the reality was that you wouldn’t have the nerve almost if you were writing a fiction film to say that the only time we’re going to hear Roland speak will be saying, ‘I’m doing things with that car that no one would believe’, minutes before he goes out and drives it.

So, that thing of showing him talking and seeing who he was before he has the crash rather than just being this name, ‘this person had this terrible accident’. That’s important to me anyway, and his family I’m sure have seen it. I know there were links with Berger, obviously, that Austrian link, but we never met them in person. His dad I think is still in formula one, I think his dad is involved in some sort of way. But I think my producer had contact with them. It was important that there were two accidents and that two people died, that was very important to say. The truth is I don’t know if anything had changed in the sport if RR had had the accident only. It’s Senna having his accident and the fact that he didn’t make a mistake, we can absolutely dispel that rumour. Something happened, something went wrong, but it was still a freak that he died. It was an act of god, that’s why everything changed afterwards.

Q: One thing we haven’t touched on is the spiritualism aspect of it. What do you think of Senna’s idea that racing brings you closer to God?
Asif Kapadia: That’s part of the whole Brazilian, the religion, his spirituality, a key part of his character and something that James Gay Rees the producer was always pushing for. It’s really important for him that we didn’t go light on that subject. And it’s amazing how many people respond to that. People who are not religious at all. But it’s the way he speaks, the way he eloquently uses that and the way it was used against him by certain people. And it’s interesting that we’d look at a race and look at a press conference. And he’d give an English press conference and it would be pretty bland – had problems with the car, the gear box was going … I could find nothing there.

Then’s he doing a 45-minute interview in Portuguese and I had to get it entirely transcribed and he’d be amazing. Like the Brazilian race, it’s all in Portuguese. He didn’t say any of that in English and that’s when we realised, ah, there’s more than one story going on. He’s saying one thing to the English guys, who didn’t like him talking about God, who would pick on him, and then he’d say something else to his home fans and we want the film to work as if you walk out and feel a bit Brazilian at the end. So that was interesting, he said most of that in his own language to his own people to his own audience. But it was a very important character trait. The spiritual element is almost the way he drove. It was an out of body experience. And the way he thanked God when things happened. When his engine goes, when his gearbox blows, he said God gave me this race. And there were other moments.

Of course, the tragedy his journey is such that for me his accident is an act of God. It’s a freak accident what happened for all of those things to come together at that particular moment at that speed on that corner. Something happened to make the car go straight. The fact that the wheel came off at a particular angle to him is just a one in a million chance. So that is a part of his life and his death. It’s an important thing to get across actually. That’s what made it different, a real key part of what made it different. Some people would say he used that psychologically to outdo other people. If you’ve got God on your side what hope do the rest of us have?

Prost says it’s dangerous for the driver if they believe in God and I think Senna’s answer is fantastic: “Just because I believe in God doesn’t mean I’m immortal, doesn’t mean I think I can’t hurt myself.” It’s a brilliant answer, it’s a brilliant riposte I think. It’s where the change happens in the film in a way because danger comes into the film. That’s when we see Donnelly’s accident. Up to now he’s just winning, winning, and it’s easy. Even when he loses the title it’s not because he did anything. Then something starts to happen at that period of the film and you realise this is really dangerous what you guys do for a living…

Q. Do you have any particular favourite scenes that you were most sorry to lose?
Asif Kapadia: There’s a few that I tried to squeeze into the end roll, as you may have noticed. There’s a very famous scene where he’s driving a car in qualifying and there’s an accident in front of him… Eric Comas had this terrible accident and he [Senna] jumped out of the car and went to help him, nearly getting run over. It’s just unbelievable. I’ve seen so many hours of footage and in his era no one stops… no one even wants to know about an accident. But as we know from the film, Senna is the guy who would go and see what it looks like to be in a terrible accident and then look at the state of the car and then look at the road and try and figure out how it happened, whether it was something on the track, but basicall7 what he needed to understand to be able to deal with it – and then he’d get in the car and go even faster! And that was him. And so that Comas accident happened in ’92, when he was having that terrible season, his worse season… Mansell whoops him in that Williams and he, in the middle of all of that, does this amazing act because his best friend is Professor Sid Watkins, because of what had happened to [Martin] Donnelly [in ‘88]… his spokesman said: “Well, what happens if something like that… what are you trying to do? What are you trying to do with his tongue there?” And Sid explained to him… the problem is how long it’s just taken me to explain it. We would have needed to explain it and it becomes another five minute scene at a point when we needed to get onto Imola. And so, we have the rivalry of Prost, there was a point where ’92 and ’93 were two seasons we had to do in a [hurry]… and people consider ’93 to be his best season! Senna fans are like: “That’s the one where he did… he won five races in a car that was nowhere near as good.” He really did amazing drives and we had to cut it right down because anything we put in there takes out of Imola or takes out of somewhere else, so it was this give and take. So, that was one scene.

There was an opening of the film which I loved, which was quite unusual, which was that we opened with this sequence, a montage of Brazil at that time, in a real bad state, a dictatorship, soldiers marching through the streets, rioting, violence everywhere, it’s in a really bad way and then we cut to that young boy with the Super 8 footage and someone with a bit of cardboard with “Brazil” handwritten, so you’re saying, ‘This is the country, look at the state it’s in and this is the guy that’s going to save them’. And I really loved that – it was a beautiful cut, almost. And you think: “How the hell is he going to do that?” And then you see the film. And then you see the ending. But again, it got cut and there were various scenes like that.

There was one very powerful scene about Tamburello. A few weeks before Imola, Senna is standing on the corner – you can see it, it’s Italian footage – he’s not happy with the track, it’s too bumpy. And he’s complaining to the race – the guy who runs the track. And then we had the audio from [Gerhard] Berger, talking about Senna and Berger going to Tamburello saying: “If they don’t change this corner, someone’s going to die here”. And it’s really a powerful scene. But the reason we took that one out – it’s a tough call, it’s a very powerful scene – was because, at the time, nobody knew he was going to have an accident. No-one expected it. So, what we didn’t want to do was make the film which is told in hindsight, saying: “Oh, look. Look. Look, look, look.’ Because it’s a very easy thing to do, 10, 20 years later, isn’t it? But actually at the time, no-one expected it. No one could believe he didn’t finish the race in a Williams. And so we thought it’s too easy to re-look at everything saying: “Oh my God, look’ – because how many corners has he stood on saying: “I don’t like this corner?” Over the years, you know, how many tracks has he done that on? And we’re just going to show you the one. So it felt, like we were, yeah, telling the story in hindsight rather than stay in the moment, all the time, in the moment, in the moment and then, bang, it happens, it’s a shock. And I think, story-telling-wise – and it was one of the editors who pushed for that, Chris King pushed for that and I think it was a really good call.

Q. Can you talk about Senna’s pivotal Brazilian Grand Prix win, when he completed the race in sixth gear and was barely able to lift the trophy?
Asif Kapadia: It’s my favourite movement, moment and most emotional bit for me, still, when I watch it. You see, that’s really interesting, because what happened was at the beginning it felt like if we just do what everyone expects because it’s in every book, we’re going to just tell the same stories that are already somewhere on YouTube – you’ve got to have Donnington, you’ve got to have this, you’ve got to have that – that’s what everyone knows, because everyone’s seen it in movies or in other documentaries. And what I wanted to do was to somehow – and we had this story that we were trying to tell and Brazil was a character. Now the first time he wins in Brazil was a really big deal, but I don’t think people knew that story so well. And so to go and say: “Okay, now let’s look at every single tape that’s been shot in Brazil 1991…” And then because we had access to Bernie’s archive that no-one else has had, we got all this behind-the-scenes footage.

And we found the guy who went – who basically jumped over the fence, went in there with a video camera and filmed Senna in the car, when he couldn’t get out. You know, that’s a VHS tape. And then we were able to get the footage of him getting out of the car, not being able to move his arms and saying to his dad: “Touch me gently.” And his dad gives him this kiss and then everyone else: “Don’t touch me!” And it’s just like, it sums him up in a few seconds.

And my favourite bit is the podium. You know, that thing of – I’ve seen the photo many many times and I didn’t really understand, why is it such a famous photo? But when you understand what he’s been through in that race, to win for the Brazilian crowd, to win at home, to win – and what it means to the crowd and then that struggle to lift the trophy, he’s not going to quit, he’s not a quitter, he doesn’t give up. That little moment on the podium almost sums him up as well. And the other thing I suppose I love about the race is, it’s really not a race with anyone else. We never really show any other cars. It’s a race against himself. ‘I don’t want to – this car’s broken. The gear-box has gone. I’m in sixth gear.’ People didn’t believe him, famously. They said: “It’s impossible. You can’t do it.” Look at it! It’s a manual car – the guy’s not taking his hands off the wheel! It’s unbelieveable – he’s driving a Formula 1 car in sixth gear. It’s a fast track, which helped. But it was just – technically, it’s really weak, that footage, but emotionally, it’s really strong and that was the big decision that we had to do, because we had to go to Working Title, who were making hundred million dollar movies, so they were looking at footage, before we’d come into a screening room of YouTube, that looked like crap.

And the thing is, I’m like, trying to argue, saying: “Look, people are spending hundreds of millions to make it look as fast as our film. And our film’s real. So, just trust it, trust our footage, trust him, trust emotionally what’s going on. It will look a bit better when we get a master, it will sound a lot better.” And I love the music in that section. That’s one of the things that works, is Antonio Pinto’s music. He’s Brazilian and he hadn’t even seen the film and I got him to – I spoke to him on the phone, I said: “I’m going to need some music.” So, he wrote that theme before he saw a frame of the film, purely from his memories of Senna. So that Brazil being a character was something really important that that race sums up and it’s not really something that people talked about. They talk about what he meant to Brazil, they talk about the funeral, but that race, people probably had never seen the footage, outside, so yeah.

Q: You seemed to have had lots of co-operation regarding footage, and from Senna’s family and so on, why do you think that is?
Asif Kapadia: It’s Senna. There’s something about him. He is loved. He has a special aura and a presence, people who knew him loved him. Obviously there’s the tragic element to the story, but there’s something else – it’s something magical about him. On this film, people would call us and say: “We hear you’re making a film about Senna… how can we help? What can we give you? Do you need anything? I love this guy.” And that doesn’t happen with people, particularly… Heroes, they wane, you get forgotten. The composer [Antonio Pinto] is a case in point – he rang us and said: “I want to do this film! What can I do?” “We can’t afford you!” “Doesn’t matter, we’ll work it out – how can I do the film?” “Write me some music! We don’t have a contract, we don’t have a deal, I’ve never met you. I’m in Soho, they’re not going to fly me out there, they’re not going to fly you out here, but write me some music. The proof will be in the pudding – if your music is great then we can do the film.” And he went off and wrote the music.

And it was consistently like that – so we’d get, I’d get emails and calls from Greece, Russia, all over the world, saying “I’ve got photos, can I give you my photos? I’ve been following him for years…” And in the end, obviously, we didn’t use stills – that’s another element, apart from the voiceover, the talking heads. I didn’t want at any point to cut to a still of a magazine cover, you know, it’s like, that’s not a movie for me. That’s what everyone traditionally does. But that kind of fondness for him has just grown stronger and stronger over the years, and it was the same with Bernie [Ecclestone]. That’s why I think we were able to make this film – because there is something so special about Senna.

Q: Did you speak to all his ex-girlfriends?
Asif Kapadia: I think we spoke to Xuxa… nah, you know what, we made a call not to get into the gossipy stuff. In Brazil that’s all they want – well, a lot of people want that. Maybe YOU want that! Globo makes a movie about Senna every week – and you know, it’ll be this girl’s story, and this guy’s story, this person’s story. And that’s what they do, and I think that’s a certain type of film-making. My rule was very simple – if I they show it, I’ll put it in the movie.

Obviously, a lot of this stuff I couldn’t show – I never found those tapes! Although I think that stuff on the boat is pretty saucy… it’s pretty unbelievable, you can see that’s not done for camera. You can see they’re hardly wearing any clothes, but that intimacy, that his brother’s operating the camera. And that’s the point I was coming to – I did speak to his brother, and his brother is quite… you know, they’re all still in mourning, the family. It’s really tough. It’s really tough interviewing people, and you realise I’m not making a drama, this is not a fiction, these are real people, two people died for real. There’s a moment when I was cutting the funeral, and I’m looking at his mother, and I’m trying to pick which bit of the shot to use. It’s just ethically, morally, in a place that I’ve never been in before.

But anyway, his brother, his younger brother, said: “Oh yeah, I used to come over on my summer holidays, and I used to have a VHS camera, and I used to shoot…” “Have you got this footage?” “I don’t know, I haven’t looked at it in 20 years.” “Can you find it?” Now he’s never looked at it himself again – as we all do, you shoot home videos, put it away and never look at it again! But we were like, “Can we see it?” And he thought about it, and then he said yeah. Now, I don’t know why he trusted us, he’s never given that footage to anyone else – or no-one’s ever bothered to ask, but I think he’s never given it to anyone – and by then they trusted us enough – and I couldn’t speak Portugese, and he doesn’t understand English – and he gave us these videotapes, and it’s amazing stuff. Senna being a kid, flying an aeroplane, doing childish things – pushing people off a boat into the water, waterskiing, being with his mum and his dad… and it was quite amazing stuff from VHS tape that no-one’s ever looked at.

And that kept happening, there was just something that… I think generally, people make films, they’re TV documentaries, and you have a crazy turnaround. “I need this thing now, it’s on tomorrow”. Well, alright, we’ve got years. Ron Dennis, when we first spoke to Ron, he said “I don’t want anything on the record. No mics, no cameras, nothing.” “That’s fine, I’m cool with that.” I didn’t want the interview for the film anyway! But we were like “We want to get your voice!” But he said “No, I’m not going to do it on the record.” So we said fine. So we talked to him, and Ron is… a particular guy. He wants to get his story right, he wants to get his facts right. But he’d get things wrong – he wouldn’t remember. And we’d spent so long looking in detail at every race, we were like “It wasn’t on the Thursday, it was the Friday.” “It wasn’t that track, it was this track.” “It didn’t happen on that corner, it was on that corner.” “Actually, no, it was so-and-so in the background!” And he was like: “Alright, you know what you’re talking about. You’ve done your homework. Okay, come back, let’s do it properly.”

So, then we came back a few weeks later, and did it on camera, and did it on tape, and had two hours with him. And he came to see the film a couple of times, and cried like anything when he saw the second version. And now he’s… you know, it’s absolutely the golden age of McLaren, isn’t it, this film, and so they love the film. So, he’s a tough guy, but because we had time, because we were making the movie over years, we were able to go back to him and actually gain his trust.

Q. There’s a litany of amazing characters in the film, the FIA President for instance looks like a mob boss. These are characters that you couldn’t make up aren’t they?
Asif Kapadia: Yes, you come across his driver’s briefings and you can’t believe what he’s saying! The fact that he’s funny, I feel like some of what he says has, I hope, there’s a tongue in cheek. Who know, okay, but what I loved is that those drivers briefings are great character scenes, humorous and funny but show us what Senna was really like. I’ve seen so many and he would be the only guy who spoke up, he would be the only one fighting for other drivers, minutes before he’s about to race for the world championship, he’d be arguing for a French driver. And Ballest would be saying ‘no no no i can’t do that’, and we just didn’t have time to put it in.

I would love to be able to put in the longer version of the drivers briefing before the 1989 race in Japan, which is the one where Prost turns into him and Prost wins the title. Just before they drive, when Ballest is saying ‘these drivers are looking at you as an example, mistakenly they think you’re an example’. A young French driver, Jack l’feit, had had an accident a few weeks before. His career is over, he could have lost his legs. Ballest says ‘okay we’re going to raise some money, I want you to give a grand each, and I’ll get the teams to give a grand and I’ll put in some money as well’ and Senna said ‘what’s he going to do with 1000 dollars from each of us, it’s nothing, this could be the end of his career. We should all give 10,000, and whatever we give you double it with the fines you’ve taken off us all season’. ‘no, no I cannot do this, it’s not my money it’s not my money’.

They argue for a long time, and this is minutes before they’re about to race for the world championship, and he’s arguing with Ballest for money. To cut a long story short they have the race, we know what happens. Prost, in my opinion, turns a bit early into him, Senna goes off, changes the nosecone, takes over the guy, beats Nadeeri, wins the race, gets disqualified. When he gets disqualified he gets a six month suspended ban on his licence, he gets fined 10 grand. The next line Ballest says: ‘and I’m going to give half the money to this young French driver Jack l’feit because I think he deserves the fine’.

So, instead of getting a grand out of Senna he gives him 50 grand from Senna. He only gives him half! So that hundred grand fine says ‘and I’ve decided to set up a fund’, and we just didn’t have time to have the before, the middle and the aftermath. And that was the thing with a lot of the stories in the film because like a good fiction film you set it up, you have the middle and then you have the payoff, and there were so many scenes like that, so many stories like that. That one was one of my favourites but it would have been another 5 minutes of story and we just didn’t have time. But you’re going ‘I can’t believe he just did that’, and no one would know, no one knows because you’ve never seen it. And I suppose the other one is the Fullerton story. Actually part of me doesn’t want to talk about it because I don’t want to give that away. It’s like the Rosebud moment in the film, and I’ve seen a lot of articles that kind of give that away now. And that’s the thing when people first see the film, everybody sees that question and they wait for him to say Prost and he doesn’t, so let’s not talk about that.

Q: Having done it once, would you want to do it again?
Asif Kapadia: I am a director and I think actually they’re not that different – dramas and docs aren’t that different. When I’m doing a drama I’m trying to make things feel as believable and real as possible. The hair, the make-up, the costume, the design, you’re trying to make it authentic. And when you’ve got a documentary it’s all authentic, so what story are you going to tell and how do you make it dramatic and exciting? It’s the same thing. I love sport, so I’d love to do more stories if I can that deal with sport maybe. Other characters, actually the real guy is so interesting why would you want to get anyone to play them? But it’s all about access.

The challenge is… I could never do another film like this entirely with archive and one day I’m going to have to do an interview with someone, aren’t I? I’m delaying it. I used to work in TV and quit the job because I couldn’t do it any more. I quite like taking my time over a film, five years is how long it takes me to work something out. And when you just do quick turnover, turnaround, I’m literally this is driving me mad, I want to find another living. I’ll just have to find a creative way to tell the story.

Q: Can you watch Formula 1 in the same way now?
Asif Kapadia: Yeah, I love it. The more you know the better it gets. The more politics there is, the more you understand. Sometimes the races are terribly boring but what’s going on off the track is great. And then it makes the race much more interesting. I think we are in a golden age. There are four great drivers in three different teams. So, it is exciting. I haven’t even mentioned Schumaccher and what that brings in by having him around again. So there are five world champions I suppose and it’s a really exciting time. So I do watch it. And actually the BBC coverage is amazing. It really is good. So it becomes a seven hour thing. And I can now officially to the wife “It’s work, darling” I have to watch it. I have to watch every second. And actually, my wife who can’t stand racing has got into it and once she understood the politics it becomes more interesting for non-racing people I think.