Directors Roundtable: Alejandro González Iñárritu, Gina Prince-Bythewood, JD Dillard, & More

Film directors Alejandro González Iñárritu (Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths), Gina Prince-Bythewood (The Woman King), Todd Field (Tár), Joseph Kosinski (Top Gun: Maverick), Sarah Polley (Women Talking), and JD Dillard (Devotion) join a roundtable discussion about their movies and directing methodologies. Rebecca Keagan from The Hollywood Reporter (THR) serves as moderator.

“When I read the script, I think, for all of us, there’s probably 100 movies we would like to do or want to do. But it’s a ‘have to’ thing when I read it. It is an undeniable, guttural connection that I have to go on this journey, and I have to put those stories into the world.”

Keagan begins in conversation by asking each guest director what comes to mind when deciding to take on a new movie. Gina claims she needs a “have to” feeling to make her choose to take on a film. This “have to” feeling is described as a connection with a story to the point where she will put in all her effort to have it released into the world. Todd thinks about the long journey it will take to complete a film. There’s nothing more valuable than time and how it is invested. Todd believes the most dangerous thing a director can get involved with is losing interest in the film. Whatever a director invests their time in, they must ensure that it has a fair chance of keeping them involved.

Dillard claims that at a certain point in his life years ago, he realized that there are a set number of films he will make in his lifetime. That additional context made him protective of how his time is used. Sarah agrees that there has to be a sense of urgency when deciding to take on a film or having something to say. In her case, Sarah has three kids, so she isn’t willing to go into that type of work anytime soon. Her turning point was having female producers structuring shootings to allow people to get home and not sacrifice their domestic lives. Gina agrees with Sarah, saying that her children were taken into consideration when becoming the director for The Woman King. Gina feels that when she does a film, she’s away from her family, so she initially vowed to take a break after filming The Old Guard (2020). When the script for The Woman King came, Gina saw it as an incredible project but would have let it go if she felt it would affect her family time. Thankfully, after Gina’s husband read the script, he believed it was her next movie and supported her.

Alejandro agrees with everyone and states that his reasoning combines all the guest directors’ answers. Alejandro thinks most of the films he is trying to do are bothering him because they create conflict he needs to explore. He sees filmmaking as a means to dig into something that, for some reason, has been stuck to him. Bardo felt very personal to him and allowed Alejandro to feel a sense of urgency to understand what was bothering him. For Joseph, deciding on a film is also about looking for a new challenge. Joseph feels he must stay busy, so he searches for something he has never done before—a world he wants to learn.

“As a frustrated musician, I loved the conceptual albums of the 1970s where there was no singles. There was a story like Pink Floyd, Genesis, jazz, or Bowie. All these stories are told in a musical way, so that’s where I start realizing, ‘What if I suddenly jump into the visual thing?’”

Keagan then asks the guest if they saw directing as a job they wanted to do when they were children. Was this something they understood, something they would potentially do? Specifically, Keagan wants to know if there was a moment in their lives where they thought of directing as a potential place for them to land. Sarah admits she never thought directing as something she wanted to do early in life. She started out as an actress and remembered deciding not to go a certain way in her career at age 19. At the time, Sarah realized acting wasn’t everything as she discovered her passion for writing. Sarah had the idea to create a short film, Away From Her (2006), and it was the hardest and the most stressful thing she ever did, but she loved it. The intensity of collaboration and the sense she had always been sent away from the most interesting parts of the filmmaking process drew Sarah to directing. Sarah soon saw directing as an extension of her desire to be a writer.

Todd reveals he also got his start in directing through acting, but began in a sideways manner. Originally, Todd was a musician until he followed a friend into a theater at the school from which he received a scholarship. He soon found himself directing the student exercises for the theater group. Todd sees his time as an actor as a means to an end. His encounter with his college’s theater developed his desire to make his films. It felt almost impossible for Todd because it required a lot of collaboration, especially in convincing people to do these films. He acted for about five years before quitting and joining the American Film Institute. To this day, Todd has no desire to get into acting again.

Joseph discusses how he initially went to college with plans to become either a jazz saxophonist or an astronaut. He began college majoring in engineering, but a professor once approached him and stated that Joseph had an eye for detail. The professor suggested to Joseph that he switch majors and pursue a more creative field. Upon receiving the advice, Joseph applied to architecture school and was accepted. While studying architecture, Joesph eventually attended a session where he focused on the architectural tools of filmmaking. This class cultivated Joseph’s growing interest in film to the point where he sought out and discovered numerous cinemas. He soon realized he had more joy in making films than creating architecture.

Like Joseph and Todd, Alejandro started out as a musician in Mexico City. In those days, there wasn’t a strong presence of the film industry in Mexico, and he thought it would have been an impossible dream to create movies. Alejandro worked as a radio host for five years, playing the music he loved and creating his own personas. He attempted to springboard into becoming a musician, but came to understand his clumsy hands made it difficult to play instruments. Cinema came into Alejandro’s life around twenty-two years after working in radio. At age 35, he directed his first film. Looking back, Alejandro feels he started late, but also believes he was strolling through life to find out how to express himself.

“It took me so much time to even figure out what the different roles are on set, and then your passions sort of align with your experience. That grew the actual interest into directing.”

Gina discloses how at the age of 20, she wanted to be a writer and went to UCLA to major in scriptwriting. Before she could enter UCLA’s film school, Gina had to be a junior, so she spent the first two years taking film classes and working on student productions. One day, Gina had an epiphany while carrying equipment on the set of a student film. It was the first time Gina fully understood that the person telling everyone what to do is the person telling the story. At that moment, Gina comprehended what a director entails and set about becoming one.

Dillard sees people starting outside of the business as oblivious to what the roles in filmmaking are. He remembers that his earliest memories of wanting to do director-like work were at a young age. Surprisingly, Dillard initially wanted to build animatronics but concluded he didn’t have the tools to do it. After animatronics, he tried his hand at animating, but the work felt lonely. Dillard then tried writing, only to discover he felt lonelier. These attempts and discoveries about himself naturally led Dillard to direct because he loved the text of a story and had a growing desire to control the text.

Curious about how the films were financed, Keagan asks the directors how their movies were greenlit and made. She directs this question to Todd and his film Tár. The experience was strange for Todd. He claims he is used to not making films for an extended period of time and also having everybody patting him on the back for the script. Most of the time, Todd sees all that as being based on IP because people have a certain amount of reasonable assurance that there’s some understandable baseline for what everyone is doing. When writing original material without a benefactor, Todd claims it must be a so-called spec script. When the pandemic hit, Focus Features Chairman Peter Kujawski told Todd to write whatever he wanted. That was a novel situation for Todd. It was strange and terrifying to try to live up and own that responsibility and respect. Writing was a way to stay sane for Todd during the pandemic, so he quickly brought attention into writing the script for Tár. Todd felt it was simple in his case, expressing appreciation for the executives at Focus Features getting on board and being supportive.

Keagan expresses her surprise when finding out that Tom Cruise was initially not interested in making Top Gun: Maverick and Joseph had the job of pitching the film to Cruise. Joseph explains that for the movie to be greenlit, Cruise had to sign on, so his first assignment as director of Top Gun: Maverick was to successfully pitch it to Cruise. Thankfully, Joseph had worked with Cruise as the director of Oblivion (2013). However, Joseph also felt that the character Maverick was one Cruise didn’t want to go back to because he didn’t have to since the role was one of Cruise’s works that made him a superstar. Joseph and Jerry Bruckheimer flew to Paris and got twenty minutes with Cruise in between setups of Mission: Impossible – Fallout. When pitching the film to Cruise, Joseph started with the emotional core of the story because he knew if anything was going to hook in Cruise, it was that.

“I grew up on Navy bases and my father was a Blue Angel for two years, so that world has always been part of my ecosystem. I came on [Devotion] like, ‘I’d like to do this and here’s why,’ and I told them my life’s story and I’m getting emotional about my dad.”

Keagan brings up how The Woman King already had Viola Davis attached to it when Gina met with Davis and asked Gina how it went. Gina wanted to clarify that even getting to the point where she was in a room with Viola Davis was incredible. She explains how Davis and others had been trying to get this film set up for the last six years. At the time, there was no template for a movie confronted by Black men and women to base profitability. To this day, Gina credits the success of Black Panther (2018) with greenlighting The Woman King. Returning to her meeting with Viola Davis, Gina admits she was intimidated by Davis’s presence, let alone convincing her to trust Gina as the director. Gina explained to Davis her guttural connection to film to the point where she started crying in the middle of the meeting. She thought she blew it, but Viola felt a connection with Gina and trusted her with the role of director.

Dillard chimes in and claims his experience with Devotion was similar to Gina’s connection with The Woman King. He also received a script with an actor already attached and nearly cried in the meeting. Dillard reveals that his father became a naval aviator thirty years after Black naval aviator Jesse Brown passed. His father was a Blue Angel for two years, and Dillard grew up around naval bases. When the opportunity came for him to tell a story about something tied to his life, Dillard disclosed to the producers his life story and became emotional about his father. Dillard wanted to come in and convince them that he could speak to Devotion with some authority and love.

Shifting focus to Sarah, Keagan asks her to describe what the complicated process was like to greenlight Women Talking. Sarah clarifies that she didn’t see the process as complicated but admits that there were decisions she had to make regarding the kind of film she and the crew wanted to make and the freedom to make those decisions. Sarah believes it all came down to finding the right people to work together. She explains how it’s easy for others to think of Women Talking as a bunch of women sitting around a small set, but difficult to describe why it needed to be on a more epic canvas. Sarah wrote the first draft of the script as a spec script. When Sarah and executive producer Dede Gardner agreed to have the film at MGM, there was a simple, streamlined process for the budget, which was new to Sarah. Coming from an independent film background, Sarah found it refreshing to not spend a significant amount of time and energy on raising funds. She realized early in her career that being a director also involved being a salesperson.

“Once it was done, it [Bardo] had been such a personal film in a way that I started to explore locations and possibilities in my own country. I wanted to make sure that I have everything in place to, at some point, then offer somebody the possibility to finance it.”

Continuing the discussion of financing films, Keagan asks Alejandro why he funded Bardo himself and if there was a time when that felt unusual for him. For Alejandro, it was crucial to have the ability to work by himself. In his previous film Birdman (2014), Alejandro tried to work by himself with his cowriter Nicolás Giacobone with whom he has worked with for three films. Bardo began as a spec script because Alejandro did not yet have a clear idea and was uncertain if the film would work. At the same time, there was an innate desire for Alejandro to make something he could explore, so he and Nicolás spent four to five years slowly working on the script for Bardo. When preparing Bardo, Alejandro revealed that nobody wanted to finance it because it was in Spanish, and he wouldn’t budge on the dialogue. Many doors were closing for the film, and Alejandro didn’t blame them because he knew there was no template of success to grab onto as a foreign film.

The problem of financing Bardo was exacerbated once the pandemic hit. Alejandro describes that period as a messy situation where he and his wife frequently had conversations in deciding whether or not to move forward and contemplating how important Bardo meant to them. A breakthrough came when Alejandro managed to speak with producer Scott Stuber of Netflix. During a dinner celebrating Martin Scorsese, Alejandro sat with Scott and explained the film to him. Scott immediately agreed to speak with Netflix executives to greenlight Bardo. To this day, Alejandro considers himself lucky and privileged knowing he had the trust and support he needed at his low point.

Keagan explains how Alejandro brings up an interesting point about creative feedback: whether it comes from people you respect or from people you must listen to. She asks the other guest directors about their approaches in getting this type of input. Sarah states her thought process has greatly changed over time to where now she tries every note of input because it’s interesting to her. Even if the advice is terrible or makes no sense, Sarah believes she might glean something from taking it in and throwing it out. While she admits to not following every input, Sarah does feel the need to work with people she trusts for that paradigm to work.

Normally, Sarah thinks working with adversarial financiers or someone who doesn’t understand her vision is detrimental. In the case of Women Talking, getting notes from her producers who deeply cared about and understood the material from the film made Sarah feel like they were fighting for her. Sarah now sees herself as living inside an experiment where she tries different things when she is with people she trusts. Doing so, in Sarah’s opinion, allows her to respond to why some input doesn’t work by showing the ones who suggested it.

“At the end of the day, I have to be able to look up on that screen and believe everything up there.”

Gina claims she has a similar mindset to Sarah. The only difference being she will only try notes as long as they don’t fundamentally go against her vision. The Woman King is a film Gina has placed her life and soul into, believing it has become her legacy. She does enjoy the collaborative process, but fighting for the vision she feels is the prime directive for Gina. Gina reveals that when she showed her final edit to Tom Rothman, Chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures, Rothman gave Gina the final word for the last cut. He reassured Gina that The Woman King will be the film she wishes to see on screen.

Dillard states that with a good partner, directors can take the script to litigation. While Dillard dislikes fighting about a script, he does enjoy testing it and folding it into a different point of view. He believes there is a benefit to directors’ experience when defending their vision and deciding whether to die on the hill they made for themselves. Dillard even claims to have a lot of fun experiencing that feeling, claiming “The protein of what you’re working on expands because you’re learning how to defend it.”

Keagan then moves the conversation toward the topic of casting. Focusing on Todd, she assumed he had a specific person in mind (Cate Blanchett) as he was writing Tár. Keagan asks what Todd’s relationship was with Cate Blanchett when he was thinking about the movie. Todd reveals that he met Blanchett ten years ago on a set he had worked on for a year. They met in New York City and had a long dinner together. Todd knew Blanchett as a performer, but after dinner, he began to see her as a filmmaker as well. He claimed Blanchett had a holistic and three-dimensional view of narratives.

Before Tár, Todd had never written a script with a specific actor or actress in mind because he saw that approach as reductive; doesn’t benefit him or the actors. When he sat down to write Tár, with no expectations, Blanchett appeared on his script. Upon completion, the studio approved it, but Todd stalled calling Blanchett for the lead role for a month due to his uncertainty of her decision. Thankfully, Blanchett agreed immediately, but the pandemic stalled production for a year. Todd admits to appreciating the year-long delay because it provided him and Blanchett more time to prepare and hone their craft.

“The energy of him [Daniel Giménez Cacho] beyond the craft, I didn’t care much about. But the fact that he was so into the connection of what this journey was about—the surrender of everything, opening up, letting yourself fall, and observe and not judge and not react…These are the things I want this character to be.”

Keagan brings up how Sarah aimed to start filming Women Talking in the summer, but COVID-19 restrictions delayed shooting for over a year. Knowing this, Keagan asks Sarah if the casting stayed the same. Sarah saw the delay as additional time used to cast and try out new actors. The extra time also allowed Sarah to test different iterations of the characters within Women Talking. She states that casting for this film was the most intense casting process she has ever been a part of. Sarah discloses how she felt like she was casting a character community with individuals having the ability to simultaneously create community and step back to make space.

Joseph stated he had recently completed a project with supporting actors Jennifer Connelly and Miles Teller from Top Gun: Maverick before they were cast. When putting together the story, these two were at the top of Joseph’s casting list after Tom Cruise. He also feels that convincing Val Kilmer to return to the franchise was a personal accomplishment since he is a fan of Kilmer. Outside the big names within the film, Joseph credits his casting director for bringing him many talented faces he has never seen before. These fresh actors would go on to cast as the new, young Navy pilots that would accompany Cruise’s and Teller’s characters. Joseph believes casting is eighty percent of a director’s job, stating: “If you cast it right, you’ve got a shot.”

Alejandro explains how his first goal in casting Bardo was finding the lead actor for the main character. His first choice was the talented Mexican actor Daniel Giménez Cacho because he considers Cacho the best actor in Mexico. Before casting, Alejandro had a long dinner with Cacho. Through their conversation, Alejandro discovered he was similar to Cacho in many ways: they were born in the same city, part of the same generation, married for thirty years, etc. Ultimately, the similarity that drew Alejandro to Cacho was that they shared a curiosity about life itself.

Sarah intervenes in Alejandro’s discussion, asking the other directors if they learn more from auditions or meetings with actors. Everyone at the table immediately agrees that they uncover more from meetings. Todd brings up a meeting with Czech film director Miloš Forman back when Todd still acted. He explains Forman had cast him after their meeting, but what was strange about Forman’s approach was how he read people. At the time, Todd and Adam Sandler were going for the same role in Forman’s film. Sandler, who went before Todd, was befuddled by Forman’s desire to have a conversation rather than an acting try-out. Looking back, Todd realizes Forman did this because it was his unique process in landing the perfect actor.

“For me, the personal is equal to craft. We’re about to go on this incredible journey, and I need to trust you and I need to like you.”

Gina reveals that the reason she desired actors John Boyega and Lashana Lynch for The Woman King was the two speeches both actors gave separately. In her opinion, these speeches revealed who these actors were as people, and Gina wanted that energy for her characters. When meeting actors, Gina wants to know what they bring to the film, gauge their passion, their work ethic, and the type of person they will be on set.

Dillard also believes personal meetings with actors are crucial, but adds that when meeting with an actor the director respects, the director will realize how different the actor is from everything they have played. For Dillard, this realization added a new layer to how the actor is perceived. This new layer personifies an actor’s ability to not show up as themselves, but as their role. Dillard felt he witnessed that ability strongly exhibited by actor Jonathan Majors. Dillard is a fan of Majors but explains how witnessing Majors carry himself revealed how much of a “chameleon” Majors is. For Majors to be someone who commands presence while also disappearing into his performance was inspiring for Dillard.

Alejandro believes having meetings with actors depends on what the film material requires. If he is doing a Shakespeare play, he cannot have a natural actor who has never performed something similar. Alejandro argues that directors need to build a base for actors to follow. He claims, “An actor’s ability is magical, but it needs to have a base constructed to guide them.” For him, the most difficult shot for Bardo was the dancing scene in the nightclub. This was challenging for the crew because it was in a run-down location with a low amount of light, a confined space, and eight hundred extras standing together during the pandemic with no AC. It was a long session that took three retakes.

“To be in that environment, to see these actors rely on each other and help each other through it…and seeing people on set crying because they’re watching this, it was that emotional.”

Focusing on Alejandro's description of a difficult shooting, Gina claims the most challenging day of shooting The Woman King was one of the character's death scene. While every day of their schedule felt like an impossible day for everyone on set, that particular scene involved an entire action sequence of characters escaping, followed immediately by the death of a character. Gina admits to not initially knowing how she was going to shoot, but she felt like she couldn’t let the actors know this; they had to remain unscathed. She remembers approaching the actress whose character was to die. Seeing how the actor was emotionally prepared for the mindset of her character facing death, Gina contemplated how to protect the actress throughout the shoot while not rushing the importance of the scene. Gina gave a speech to the crew, reminding them what the characters are going through during this death. Despite her reservations, everyone came together and finished the scene in three takes.

Winding down the interview, Keagan asks a series of questions. She first asks the directors what the worst advice they could give to new directors is. Sarah claims believing you must do whatever it takes to get your shot is a detrimental train of thought. Gina agrees and explains how this mindset puts directors in a situation where they may direct something they don’t care about or feel any passion. Todd also agrees and advises future directors to be ready to take responsibility for any mishap. There is no guarantee for another film; it’s an extreme privilege to have that kind of responsibility. Todd confesses that he is always worried about people who make their first film.

Keagan then asks if there is anything the directors wish they had known when making their first film. Alejandro firmly expresses his lack of discipline on his first film. He believes one of the greatest dangers for a director is failing to inspire the cast and crew to trust their instinct and inspiration; never be challenged by anyone. That lack of trust could mislead many into believing the film is only about the inspiration and not the work done through collaboration. Alejandro sees the process of filmmaking requiring a prerequisite amount of prep work before shooting. He believes that by the time everything is staged for shooting, the execution of the film is already complete. Alejandro understands it may be difficult for young filmmakers to understand the process because figuring out what needs to be on set is an arduous task.

Joseph advises upcoming directors to over-prepare every day. He reasons that if they are doing it right, new directors should be exhausted by day one. Dillard instructs fresh directors to write what they want actors to feel because that is the last step in the process: lensing the film to feel something. He believes there is a point when all the prep and life happening on set becomes a final product that works on screen. This reminder, in Dillard’s opinion, helps keep his feet on the ground.

Keagan’s last question to the directors is asking what they are most surprised about getting away with in their recent films. Gina believes every film is a miracle but sees The Woman King as an absolute miracle given Hollywood’s history of underrepresenting Black people. She is excited to put the motion picture into the world and feels it took too long for a story like it to be told. Sarah views her film being greenlit as incredible since, essentially, Women Talking is just about women in a barn discussing their futures. Alejandro believes anyone who finishes a film deserves respect. He encourages filmmakers to try and push past boundaries.