NEW YORK (AP) — When Martin Scorsese He was a kid growing up in New York’s Little Italy, looking up at the figures he saw around Old St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

“Who are these people? What is a saint?” Scorsese recalls. “The moment I walk out the door of the cathedral and I don’t see any saints. I saw people trying to behave well in a world that was very primitive and oppressed by organized crime. As a child, you wonder about the saints: are they human?

For decades, Scorsese has been thinking about a project dedicated to the saints. Now he finally realized it “Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints”, an eight-part docudrama series debuting Sunday on Fox Nation, Fox News’ streaming service.

The hour-long episodes, written by Kent Jones and directed by Elizabeth Chomko, each feature a saint: Joan of Arc, Francis of Assisi, John the Baptist, Thomas Becket, Mary Magdalene, Black Moses, Sebastian and Maximillian Kolbe. Joan of Arc kicks off the series on Sunday, with three weekly installments to follow; the final four will air closer to Easter next year.

In naturalistic reenactments followed by Scorsese-led brief discussions with experts, “The Saints” points out that, yes, the saints were very human. They were flawed, imperfect people, which, for Scorsese, only enhances their great sacrifices and gestures of compassion. The Polish priest Kolbe, for example, contributed to the spread of anti-Semitism before, during World War II, sheltering Jews and eventually volunteering to die in place of a man who had been condemned to Auschwitz.

Scorsese, who turns 82 on Sunday, recently sat down for an interview shortly after returning from a trip to his grandfather’s hometown in Sicily. He was made an honorary citizen and the experience was still fresh in his mind.

Remarks have been edited for clarity and brevity.

AP: What made you want to do “The Saints”?

SCORSESE: I return to my early childhood and the respite and sanctuary I found in Old St. Patrick’s Cathedral. I can’t play sports or be a tough guy on the streets. And, you know, the streets were pretty rough down there. I found sanctuary in that place. It is now a basilica. New York’s first Catholic cathedral in 1810, 1812. Appears in “Gangs of New York.” Know Nothings and anti-immigration groups attacked it in 1844. Archbishop Hughes fought back. It is a place full of history. In this contemplation, I was curious about these figures, these statues, and what they represented. They had stories.

AP: Did you understand them then or did they seem divine to you?

SCORSESE: It took time to think about it and learn that, no, the point is that they’re human. For me, if they were able to do that, it’s a good example for us. If you take it and put it in a tough world – if you’re in a world of business or Hollywood or politics or whatever – if you’re grounded in something that’s real, acting out of compassion and love, that’s something to be admired and emulated. They make mistakes. I’ve found that if I overestimate that person, it almost gets you off the hook. “At least someone’s doing it.” Well, how about you? Dorothy Day was something, but she knew: don’t put that label on me because it throws everyone off the hook.

AP: Some were surprised that you were releasing “The Saints” with Fox Nation. What led you to them?

SCORSESE: I’ve been wanting to do this for years. I tried to do this in 1980 with RAI Television in Rome. Then it collapsed and I put the energies into “The Last Temptation of Christ”, “Kundun” “Silence” — the ones that were obviously in that realm of what you might call spirituality.

Here, they came and it was actually going to happen. I said, “Yeah, I’ll go with that.” They said, “This is the outlet.” I said, “Okay, as long as we have the freedom to express what we want.” They went with the scripts. They went with the film. They went with the cuts. Now, what I think is: do we take these thoughts or expressions and only express them to people who agree with us? It won’t do us any good. I’m talking about keeping an open mind.

Shooting in Manhattan and shooting in Oklahoma (where “Killers of the Flower Moon” was filmed) are two different things. Being around people on a farm that’s one-tenth the size of Manhattan is very different from being on 63rd Street. You start to see the world as they perceive it. Just to understand what day and night mean in rural areas. It was an eye-opening experience to be there for so long.

AP: You’ve made directly religious films like The Silence and The Last Temptation of Christ, but I wonder how you see the role of your faith in filmmaking. How are God and cinema with you?

SCORSESE: The making of the film comes from God. It comes from a gift. And that gift is also involved with an energy or a need to tell stories. As a storyteller, I was somehow given a grace that made me obsessive about it. The grace was in the fact that I have this ability, but also in the fact that I struggle over the years to create these films. Because everyone is a struggle. Sometimes you trip, you fall, you hit the canvas, you can’t get up. You crawled over the bleeding and rolled over. They throw some water on you and somehow you pass. You go to another one. Then you go to another one. This is grace, it really is.

To me, it does not mean that the cinema is a god. It is the expression of God. Creativity is the expression of God. Something happens inside you when it clicks, when it works. Not everyone thinks it works, but maybe you do too. But something is happening and there is no way to express it except that it is a gift. For me, it is a gift to experience and to exist for that moment. So it comes through the cinema. It comes through movies. Even an ad because ads aren’t easy. You have to tell a story in less than 45 seconds. My last picture was three hours and 15 minutes. (Laughs) Come on!

AP: In the year since then “Flower Moon Killers” you’ve been juggling a few different options for your next feature. where are you now Do you expect “The Life of Jesus”, from Shusaku Endo’s book, to be your next film?

SCORSESE: It’s an option, but I’m still working on it. There is a very good possibility that I may do a film version of Marilynne Robinson’s “Home,” but that is a scheduling issue. There is also the possibility of me going back and dealing with my mom and dad’s stories from the past and how they grew up. Stories about immigrants that related to my trip to Sicily. Right now, it’s been a long time since ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’. Even though I don’t like getting up early, I’d like to shoot a movie right now. Time passes. I will be 82 years old. I have to go.

AP: Are you guided any differently in this choice?

SCORSESE: Are you guided by: Is it worth doing at this late stage of your life? can you pass Is it worth your time? Because now, the most valuable thing besides the people I love, my family, is time. That’s all there is.

AP: Have you seen anything lately that you liked?

SCORSESE: Some older ones I watched. There was a movie I really liked that I saw two weeks ago called “I saw the TV glowing.” It was really powerful emotionally and psychologically and very moving. It relies on you, in a way. I didn’t know who did it. This is Jane Schoenbrun.

AP: Any older movies?

People should see “A Face in the Crowd” again and again. I think that would be important.

AP: Do you have strong feelings about the election?

SCORSESE: Well, of course I have strong feelings. I think you can tell from my work what I’ve said over the years. I think it’s a great sadness, but at the same time it’s an opportunity. A real opportunity to finally make changes, maybe in the future, never despair and understand other people’s needs as well. At this point, deep introspection is required. Action? I’m not a politician. I would be the worst you could imagine. I would not know what actions to take but to continue dialogue and somehow compassion with each other. That’s what it’s about.