Nun Scorsese better than

Biographer and friend tells how the Oscar-winning director became a huge fan of Derry Girls

Pat says. That was recognised as Scorsese’s first film and it was a subject Mary Pat could empathise with — the conflicts you feel growing up as a Catholic and the aspirations to get out of your home neighbourhood. Just a year later Mary Pat would leave the convent for good. ‘I had studied then I went out on what we called a teaching mission to teach in an African American neighbourhood in Chicago,’ she says. ‘I was there when Martin Luther King got shot and the whole neighbourhood exploded. I decided a revolution was going on and it was time to join in the fight. I think the sisters knew,’ she muses. ‘I stayed friends with them but one of them told me “don’t even think about coming back.”’ She and Martin were in constant correspondence and they finally met shortly after he edited the Woodstock film. Their friendship has endured over the years and Mary Pat found her own success working in areas of writing, producing and documentary Highly recommended: Scorsese is a fan of TV show Derry Girls making, working for the likes of Paramount in America. She has won numerous awards for her PBS documentaries, including one on the late John Hume.

But it wasn’t until The Last Temptation of Christ was being filmed that she came up with the idea of writing Martin Scorsese The Journey. She saw that everyone who had worked with Scorsese felt it had been an incredible experience and so decided to chart his life through those that knew him from the beginning to get a full picture of the man for the public.

As his 80th birthday approached, she decided to update the book with an interview with the great man.

‘He formed a very close creative relationship with Leonardo de Caprio and he wanted to put in writing his feelings of respect for Marty and that is the new forward for the book. It’s like a documentary on paper,’ Mary Pat says.

Mary Pat is, of course, Irish American, and so has a grounding

‘He is an artist, a perfectionist, a good human’

in Catholicism similar to Scorsese. They have similar areas of interest and they also share the same birthday month, his falling on November 17 and hers on the 18th.

So what is Scorsese really like as a person?

‘He is so curious and kind with a great sense of humour,’ says Mary Pat. ‘He is also an artist and a perfectionist and a good human being and a loving father and grandfather. ‘At 80 years old, to have this latest movie Killers of the Flower Moon coming out next year, I think that is going to be another masterpiece. I think that is so surprising.’

So after half a century of friendship, what do they get each other for birthday presents now?

‘Because we share an interest in Catholicism — and one of the things he talks about in the updated version of the book is working with Pope Francis — I always get some folk art. There are these Mexican places in New York City that sell very ornate religious pictures. His saint is St Martin de Porres and in Spanish they call him San Martin Caballero and there are always great pictures with sequins and great illustrations all around them. And he gets me gorgeous flowers. Every year I look forward to it.

The updated version of Martin Scorsese: A Journey by Mary Pat Kelly is out now.