TORONTO—British director Steve McQueen may share the same name as the late actor but he is no doppelgí¤nger. McQueen the actor was slim, white, and very cool. McQueen the director is pudgy, black, and passionate about his work to the point of being prickly. In fact, he quickly earned a reputation at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival for being the year’s toughest interview.

However, his film Hunger was considered to be one of the best films at the festival and won McQueen the Discovery Award for best new director. (McQueen won similar awards at the Cannes and Venice film festivals.) It tells the true story of a 1981 hunger strike held to protest the British occupation of Northern Ireland. At the centre of it is Bobby Sands (Michael Fassbender), a political prisoner who is convinced that the cause is worth dying for. (The film opens Friday [April 17].)

McQueen was 11 years old when the hunger strike occurred, and he recalls that when he read about it in the London papers, it struck him as being as far from his own world as was possible. “It was a pretty extreme situation,” he says in a Toronto hotel room. “When someone goes on a hunger strike, you think about it, particularly when you are 11, because you compare it to your own reality. It was an awakening, but I didn’t know what it meant. I was intrigued that someone would stop eating in order to be heard.”

McQueen came to feature films after more than a decade of making black-and-white silent movies for British art galleries. He was made an officer of the Order of the British Empire at the age of 33 for his work. Having spent so many years conveying his message without dialogue, he says, he felt compelled to make a feature debut that would use words wisely.

“I often think that in movies people talk a lot of shit. They fill the space with words. I wanted to get into an essential situation where it was more about reflection rather than words, and within reflection is ritual to a certain extent. It is all about process and all about ”˜doing’ rather than speaking, and that is what interests me and what has interested me my whole career. It is like watching [silent-screen icon Rudolph] Valentino, who I think is one of the greatest actors ever. He did more with his expressions and through his face than most actors could say using their entire repertoire.

“I liked Buster Keaton, too. There is a sort of humanity in his deadpan gaze, and I think people can project themselves onto that. It is not about illustration; it is about triggering an emotion rather than illustrating a situation with words. It is showing a face that is not happy rather than having the actor say, ”˜I am not happy.’ It is more beautiful. It is like the blues. But actors don’t have that philosophy. It’s not theirs. I would have conversations with them and ask them to have that revelation where they can actually ”˜be’ rather than act. You have to talk to actors about that. You can hire a face and a type, but it is about the process, and some people just have it and some don’t.”

Sands is not the only character who is developed. There are prison guards, priests, and other prisoners who are given time to tell their own side of the story. McQueen says that when he is told that having those voices in the film gives it balance, he feels free to protest.

“I am not interested in balance. I am interested in people. It’s not about left and right; it’s about you and me. It’s not who is in front of the fence or who is behind the fence. There is no differentiation or distinction.”