News Club Interview: Peter Greste

Welcome to The Call Sheet, the latest short series from News Club. This time, we’re pulling back the curtain on the Aussie entertainment industry to meet the people shaping our culture. And we’re starting with journalist Peter Greste, whose real-life story inspired the new film ‘The Correspondent’.

Ready, set, the Call Sheet…

With Kate Watson on parental leave (mum and bub are doing great, BTW…), there is a News Club series-sized hole to fill in her absence. 

Kate’s had some cracking conversations with the people who shape the news in Australia, so we thought we would extend that brief. I’ve teamed up with fellow Squizer Andrew Williams to bring you a new series, The Call Sheet, that will take you behind the curtain of the Australian entertainment industry. We’re talking to the producers, writers, directors and streamers - the people behind the pop culture we devour.

Because if you're anything like us, your sense of what’s happening in the world is shaped not only by the news we consume, but also the shows we binge, the books we read, and the music we listen to.

And kicking off proceedings is none other than celebrated Aussie journalist Peter Greste – a man who has his foot in both the newsmaker and entertainment camps.

Peter’s memoir has been made into a feature film called The Correspondent. In cinemas now, the movie recounts how, when he was working as a TV reporter in Egypt in 2013, Peter was arrested and sentenced to 7 years in prison on trumped-up charges of aiding a terrorist organisation.

So we sat down to chat. What was that ordeal like? How difficult was it to unpack that trauma and share it so publicly with the world? What surprised him about the movie-making process? And what is it like to have Richard Roxburgh portray you on the silver screen? (Spoiler alert: it’s not bad at all…)

Peter speaks candidly about it all - his time in prison, the death of his friend, the BBC producer Kate Peyton, and the crash course he has had in getting an independent Aussie film made. And despite everything he has been through, he isn’t bitter. He is remarkably measured, thoughtful, and generous with his story.

You can listen to the conversation here or tune in on YouTube - and hit subscribe while you’re at it. And scroll on for my highlights of our conversation.

Interview Highlights

Highlight 1: When Peter realised he was going to jail…

Peter Greste: When we got to the end of the trial, we thought there was no way that they could possibly convict us. And if they were going to convict us, we thought, well, look, we've already spent six months in prison, so surely time served would be enough of a sentence, and everyone's happy, we're allowed to go home. They get their conviction, you know, we can all claim some measure of victory and call it a day. But when we were convicted and sentenced to seven years, that was a tough moment.

Highlight 2: On shaping his story for the big screen

Peter: Peter Duncan [the screenwriter] and I worked a lot together. I didn't do any of the writing, but we spent hours and hours around his kitchen table, just talking about the story and the ideas behind it and the experience of it, and picking through all sorts of bizarre, weird details that he was interested in.

I got to see every version of the script, and I was able to give lots of feedback on it and talk about whether the dialogue worked and what the characters felt, or whether there were things that I didn't feel comfortable with.

Highlight 3: How it felt watching his story on the big screen

Bryce: Corbett: I was interested to read, in an op-ed you wrote for The Age, that you watched the film through your fingers. Why was that?

Peter: Yeah, because first of all, you're always sort of anxious about how you're going to be portrayed on screen…So it's a bit nervy to see that. But also, even though I know the story, I've talked about it, written about it, I've even built a career on it…The people involved in the movie caught a lot of the essential emotional elements of the experience in ways I hadn't anticipated.

The confusion of our arrest… the sense of claustrophobia in the cells… the sheer Kafkaesque madness of the trial… the crazy, discombobulating moment of my release…all of that is really hardwired into the film. And that was challenging to watch.

And that other story, the parallel narrative of Kate’s experience, is one I hadn’t really spoken about or engaged with anywhere near as much. And that was a much tougher watch, because it doesn’t end well.

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