Director Roundtable: Guillermo Del Toro, Greta Gerwig, Patty Jenkins, Angelina Jolie, Denis…
Part of The Hollywood Reporter’s annual sit-downs with Hollywood players.
Director Roundtable: Guillermo Del Toro, Greta Gerwig, Patty Jenkins, Angelina Jolie, Denis Villeneuve, Joe Wright
Part of The Hollywood Reporter’s annual sit-downs with Hollywood players.
An excerpt from a THR roundtable with directors Guillermo del Toro (The Shape of Water), Greta Gerwig (Lady Bird), Patty Jenkins (Wonder Woman), Angelina Jolie (First They Killed My Father), Denis Villeneuve (Blade Runner 2049), and Joe Wright (Darkest Hour).
For the record: Del Toro and Gerwig also wrote the screenplays for their movies and Jenkins wrote the treatment for Wonder Woman.
What did you learn from directing your first film?
GERWIG I learned that I could do it. I don’t think you quite know until you are on the other end of something like that. You take the leap and hope there is a parachute attached. But part of learning how to direct was being on film sets as an actor and, in particular, early films I made. I knew from having been on different films that when things came up that were problems or difficulties or something went awry, that was not a deviation from the path; that was the path.
DEL TORO There’s a Buddhist saying: The obstacle is the path.
WRIGHT And always the obstacle gives you solutions that you find are far more interesting and far more crazy. The Steadicam shot in [2007’s] Atonement [tracking the soldiers at Dunkirk in a single shot] was purely a result of the fact that we only had one day to shoot that scene, and the tide was going to come in and go out, so we really only had three hours of clear set. And this montage sequence was impossible to shoot in three hours, so the solution was to do it as a single take.
VILLENEUVE Hmmm. What I’m going to say must stay around this table.
Don’t worry, no one is listening.
VILLENEUVE How can I say it? Oh, boy. Let’s say, doing this movie, I lost my virginity as a director. I thought before doing this movie that I love working with other people — the thing I love about filmmaking is to bring everybody around an idea and working together — and I thought, before, that I was able to bring everybody in the same direction. And I learned on Blade Runner why you have to fire someone. And that’s a big, big thing.
Why did you have to fire someone?
VILLENEUVE At the end of the day, it’s a matter of egos. You feel there is no reconciliation possible. And on a movie of a different scale, you can compensate. But on a movie like Blade Runner, where honestly I was dead at the end, [there’s no] having to compensate.
GERWIG Before I directed, I had conversations with directors. Someone told me, “If you don’t like a shot, turn off the lights, because it gives you a second to figure out what you don’t like.” And somebody told me, “Anyone is replaceable if they’re hurting the movie.”
JENKINS A big movie is a massive organism. And you have to be a leader, you have to be a manager on a whole other level. I had interesting massive-group dynamics, where I was like, “This whole group of people works together great. And now, all of a sudden, they are all complaining about each other. Where is the [problem]? Oh, it’s you.” And I had to get rid of that person. And I feel for you and all of that. But you are a destructive personality in the midst of hundreds and hundreds of people who need to go to work every day.
JOLIE When I started, I wanted everybody to feel this is the greatest experience. And then I realized, there can be days they don’t like me. I would rather them not like me and be proud of the end result.
VILLENEUVE You are not there to make friends.
DEL TORO The other [thing] is when many of the members of the crew believe you are making something completely deranged. That is one thing as directors that we don’t talk about, that we [must] have unwavering faith. We may have moments of darkness on the set, but to the crew, you have unwavering faith.
For the rest of the conversation, go here.