I was interested in your personal relationship over the years with Nelson Mandela. Are you part of the elders as well?

Bono: That's very hurtful. (Laughter) I think probably just to stat this, it might be worth stating the obvious which is, for all of us, in this moment, there is a certain awkwardness, talking about a song and a film - when the reason for that song and that film has left us. So it's a strange thing. We were sort of thinking this and perhaps over-thinking this, and I heard a little small voice in my ear, along the lines of , "don't be so self-important" and i think because this film is so beloved to the family and fiends of Madiba, i think it is correct to make sure that another generation understands the phenomenon that was Nelson Mandela.

Is it correct to say that he was a significant influence on U2?

As regards all of us, we have ben working for this man, since our teenage rears - since the 7s, when U2 played our first anti-apartheid gig, in Dublin. A lot of the exile from the ANC came to Ireland, there was a connection there, which is quite obvious. Kader Asmal wrote a lot of the South African constitution in his bedsit in Rathmines, and he taught at Trinity College. So there was a very strong feeling in the apartheid movement in Ireland. That's where it started for us. And I've been taking orders from him on debt cancellation, taking orders fro him on the fight against HIV/AIDS and many other issue. So it's a very big moment in our life. He kind of turned our lives upside down, or right side up, depending on your point of view.

How did you approach writing the song 'Ordinary Love' for the movie?

Bono: It's a tricky one. You put U2 in a film about Nelson Mandela, and you expect somekind of political message-making. And,indeed, some of the early thoughts we had were of tha order. But actually the thing that connected to us a bout the film was that it was a loves story. I am actually the man who said to Justin (Chadwick, director), and to Anant (Singh, producer), why don't you call the film The Mandela? And I'm not sure Harvey (Weinstein, backer) would have liked that. But what makes t extraordinary is that it's a complicated love story and so we ended up writing a complicated love song. We are good at the complicated love songs, as well as the political diatribe. And then to try to make that love song universal somehow. Because ordinary love, of course, was under threat, as it is in any war, wherever you are - in Syria, as it's going on now. Common decency is the first casualty of any struggle. And, so the song is a loves song towards that, as well as a love song for that sort of respect within their relationship.

The Edge: I thin the great triumph of the film is to take this immensely important piece of our recent history and create something that one can relate to on a very personal level. Justin ann the scriptwriters did an amazing job in creating a story that we can all relate to, because at the heart of it, it is this relationship between Nelson and Winnie Mandela, and the family and the cast of the decisions that he made to become so central in the struggle against apartheid. And so that was our stepping-off point the human aspect. It was too daunting I think to try and write a song about the politics, it had to be a human song.