How to measure Paul Greengrass's power? There is his ranking as the 28th smartest person in Hollywood, of course, courtesy of US Entertainment Weekly. But more revealing is what happened when he directed his first US blockbuster, The Bourne Supremacy. Two weeks before its release, he got together with its star, Matt Damon, came up with a new ending and phoned the producers saying the new idea was way better. And it would cost $200,000 and involve pulling Damon from the set of Ocean's 12 for a re-shoot. Reluctantly the producers agreed - the movie tested 10 points higher with the new ending and made $176m at the box office. Now that's power.
Today, Greengrass is focusing the considerable force of his persuasive power on the British television industry. He is the first president of a new industry organisation - Directors UK. Its responsibilities include gathering residual rights, overseeing training, monitoring creative conditions and producing various helpful-sounding mission statements. For Greengrass, it's a solution to a serious problem in British TV.
"What we've had in the last 10 years is the rise of directorless television," he says, leaning his large frame back in a tiny wooden chair. "That's what reality television essentially is. Some of it has been wonderful. I watched Britain's Got Talent every night. But it has led to the rise of executive power in TV. With the rise of executive power you have a culture of conformity.
"When you read through that report into the phone-rigging stuff at ITV the really worrying thing was the repeated instances of executives running roughshod over the people who put their hands up and said 'I don't think this is right'. They were being threatened with their jobs. You got a tiny snapshot of what goes on in these culture factories - the director has to stand up for the piece and stand for it against those who have a vested interest in purely making money."
Directors UK launches on June 12 and is aiming to be the British equivalent of the Directors Guild of America (DGA) - the negotiating body that secures rights, pay deals and working conditions for directors. In the US it is the directors' equivalent of the Writers Guild of America - which recently brought Hollywood to a standstill for almost four months and lost the industry almost $2.1bn. The DGA is rather less aggressive. It has been on strike once, in 1987, for three hours and five minutes. That's no problem for Greengrass.
"The DGA is not a force for obstruction, they speak for good practice and studios see them as partners," he argues. "They're not a soft touch but they get the balance right. If, for instance, you directed the pilot in what became a huge hit on US TV, you would share in the success along with writer, producer and actors. That is not possible and never has been in this country. The director's rights have basically been given away.
"I've never been a person who looks back at a golden age. Our commercial competitive environment is a good thing - lean and mean and good. But if the thousands of transactions across the industry are weighted so that the director's opinion doesn't count, or that they are last in and first out, then that's a real problem."
Horror films
The organisation has taken two years to come together, after a dinner arranged by Michael Apted while he was head of the DGA. The board is chaired by Charles Sturridge (Brideshead Revisited, Shackleton) and the chief executive Suzan Dormer, and includes Gurinder Chadha (Bride & Prejudice, Bend It Like Beckham), Roger Michell (Notting Hill, Enduring Love) and Matt Lipsey (Little Britain, Jekyll). Greengrass is the spokesman, however, because pulling punches isn't really his style.
"When I first got my first job in TV on World In Action, Granada had a wonderful culture that trained people to be independently minded," he explains. "Very early on when I was a new researcher, I was in a lift and David Plowright got in - in those days, that was like God walking into your lift. He grunted 'You've just joined haven't you?' I tugged my forelock and said 'yes sir.' And he said 'don't forget, your job's to make trouble'."
Which he has done pretty much ever since. He started his film-making career with a Super 8 camera he found in the art room of Sevenoaks school - making a series of animated horror films using old dolls and bric-a-brac props. After Cambridge, he was inspired by the story of Woodward and Bernstein in All the President's Men - and decided to become an investigative journalist.
After WIA he directed TV dramas with a hard current affairs edge - The One That Got Away, about the SAS in the Gulf war; The Fix, about football corruption; Omagh, about the 1988 bombing, and The Murder of Stephen Lawrence, which led to revelations about institutionalised racism in the Metropolitan police. Hollywood came calling after 2002's Bloody Sunday, but he believes the drama would struggle to make it on air today.
"Granada funded that and it was shown on a Sunday night," he says, and smiles at the memory. "If I came in now, would I get that programme off the ground in that form? If you ask [the director] Peter Kosminsky he'll say it's much harder. My films would be made in some shape, but would they go out in prime time? Would they be made at realistic budget levels? The real problem is - how are they going to do that in the future?"
At which point Greengrass becomes so angry that it is slightly alarming. "When I was first hired I had a six-month contract, I was paid properly, trained properly and allowed to make mistakes. Now there is massive abuse of work experience. That whole area of abuse - and it is abuse - has got to be regulated. We are slashing and burning the youngest and most vulnerable members of our community and they are our future.
"Where I come from you had to earn a living. I didn't have rich parents. Now, we're arranging an industry where most people start by working for nothing, so they will tend to be people whose parents support them. Is that likely to increase diversity and expand the range of talent?"
So what was it about his training, trouble-making and about his nonconformity that caused Matt Damon to ask for him personally to direct the Bourne franchise?
"If there's a thread running through my career it's World in Action - the phrase as well as the programme," Greengrass says. "One of the things about the Bourne films I have always loved is that, although they're mainstream commercial Saturday-night popcorn movies, there's something about the story and character that enables you to get to the paranoia that drives the world today and express it in mainstream way," he explains.
"I've been lucky enough to be sustained and nurtured so I can bring to bear my take on the world outside. Good work comes from personal engagement with the prevailing climate. If you breed directors who are not nurtured or protected or given correct conditions but instead are told, as they are today, 'The editor can put it together,' then you don't get 'These are the times and this is my take.' It's a real problem for the industry and the culture as a whole. Hopefully we can stop that happening."
Curriculum vitae
Age 52
Education Sevenoaks school, Kent; Queen's College, Cambridge
Career
1978-86 producer/director, World in Action, Granada Television 1986-94 producer/director/presenter, factual television 1989-2004 writer/director, TV drama and films 2004-present director, Universal Pictures, inc United 93