Here’s How Younger Star Miriam Shor Became a Director

It was during season three of Younger when Miriam Shor, a scene-stealer in the role of Empirical marketing executive Diana Trout, started thinking about directing.

“I’d never been on a show that went more than half a season, so to be a regular on a show that goes and goes and goes was a new experience for me. As it was happening, I thought, well, this is a pretty unique opportunity,” Shor tells The Credits.

Longtime X-Men Scribe Simon Kinberg on Directing Dark Phoenix

He wrote Sherlock Holmes, produced The Martian and guided six X-Men movies to fruition from his vantage point as a writer and producer. But Simon Kinberg never actually directed anything until he took the reins of Dark Phoenix. Opening Friday, June 7, the movie reunites X-Men fixtures Jennifer Lawrence, James McAvoy, and Michael Fassbender along Sophie Turner (Game of Thrones),

Tolkien Director on Tracing Iconic Author’s Life From War to Middle Earth

The Finnish director Dome Karukoski’s biopic Tolkien traces the future of the “Lord of the Rings” author’s path from his peripatetic tween years through his Oxford attendance, intercut with his nightmarish experience fighting in the Battle of the Somme during World War I. Throughout, Karukoski offers a poetic depiction of the author’s fomenting imagination, seen through Tolkien’s eyes in the shadows of a child’s spinning light globe or marauding in the battlefield as Tolkien,

Qualified Director Jenna Ricker on Indy’s Pioneer Janet Guthrie

“This is my first documentary,” says producer/director Jenna Ricker, of Qualified, a look at the life of Janet Guthrie, the first woman—in that pre-Danica Patrick/Pippa Mann era—to ever drive a car at the Indianapolis 500.

The doc is part of ESPN’s 30 For 30 series, in celebration of the cable pioneer’s 30th anniversary. But you have to go farther back than that, to 1977, to find Guthrie in the cockpit of a racer at Indianapolis.

Director Olivia Wilde & Screenwriter Katie Silberman on the Hilarious Booksmart

The creative team behind Booksmart wanted to showcase women being funny. Not one or two women, but many women.

“That’s how it is in our lives. All my female friends are as funny as my male friends. They’re not comedians; they don’t think of themselves as funny,” said screenwriter Katie Silberman, who shares writing credit with Susanna Fogel, Emily Halpern, and Sarah Haskins.

Silberman credited Olivia Wilde, the actress who makes her feature directorial debut on Booksmart,

John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum Director on the Film’s Epic Stunts & Real Dogs

Chad Stahelski started out as a kick-boxer, served as Keanu Reeve‘s stunt double in The Matrix and rose through the ranks as a stunt choreographer with his own 87eleven Action Design before co-launching the John Wick franchise in 2014. Directing Reeves as an indomitable assassin, Stahelski has staged most of the 54-year-old actor’s action sequences “in camera,” minimizing digital effects in favor of physical performance. The old school approach has wowed fans to the tune of $261 million in world wide box office,

Trial by Fire Director Edward Zwick on Revisiting a Heartbreaking Story

Cameron Todd Willingham, who’s played by British actor Jack O’Connell in director Edward Zwick‘s Trial by Fire, was not an exemplary character. But he almost certainly didn’t set the 1991 blaze that killed his three young daughters, an alleged crime for which he was executed by the state of Texas in 2004. The fire was likely accidental, as was demonstrated by the evidence presented in David Grann’s 2009 New Yorker piece and Incendiary: The Willingham Case,

Finding the Funny With Long Shot Director Jonathan Levine & Actress June Diane Raphael

Long Shot stars Charlize Theron as Charlotte, an elegant, poised, hyper-competent Secretary of State who wants to run for President and Seth Rogen as Fred, an awkward, shlumpy, but principled journalist. Charlotte hires Fred to help write speeches that will reveal her warmer, more accessible side. It is romantic, it is funny, and it is surprisingly sweet. In an interview with The Credits, director Jonathan Levine and June Diane Raphael,

Knock Down the House Director Rachel Lears Captures History in the Making

One of the big success stories of Sundance 2019 has been the documentary Knock Down the House, which was snapped up by Netflix for ten million. The festival screening got a standing ovation and a subsequent Festival Favorite Award. Streaming on Netflix starting May 1st, Knock Down the House, which is directed and co-produced by Rachel Lears, follows four female candidates as they run for office for the first time,

Taraji P. Henson & the Team Behind The Best of Enemies on Crafting History

The Best of Enemies is based on the true story of an African-American activist named Ann Atwater and a KKK official named C.P. Ellis who were forced to work together in a fight over school desegregation in 1971. In an interview with The Credits, star Taraji P. Henson, who plays Ann, writer/director Robin Bissell, and producer Dominique Telson talked about bringing this potent true story to the screen.

Taraji,

The Gilligan Manifesto‘s Director on Revisiting a Radical Show

I had two reasons to be eager to see The Gilligan Manifesto, the new documentary about the 1960’s television series Gilligan’s Island, now available on Amazon. First, writer/director Cevin Soling’s film is a thoughtful, serious (really!) exploration of the way a silly, slapstick comedy reflected and examined the issues of its era, the midst of the Atomic Age. The seven very different characters did not choose or expect to have to spend more than three hours together but ended up having to build a society.

Gloria Bell Director Sebastián Lelio on Julianne Moore’s Greatness

It was Julianne Moore who persuaded writer-director Sebastián Lelio to revisit his 2013 Chilean film Gloria for an English-language version.

“It was quite moving to listen to her talking so passionately about the story and the characters. She had a deep understanding of everything so I was quite moved by that,” says Lelio, whose 2017 film A Fantastic Woman won the best foreign language film Oscar,

Writer/Director Anthony Maras on his Harrowing Debut Hotel Mumbai

For his debut feature, Hotel Mumbai, out March 22, Anthony Maras wore many hats: director, executive producer, and co-writer. The film chronicles the siege by terrorists at the upscale Taj Hotel in Mumbai in 2008 that took the lives of more than 160 people and injured countless others.

Maras conducted months of research to pen the script, which weaves a tapestry of stories set throughout the hotel. He also assembled an outstanding ensemble cast led by Dev Patel,

Greta Director Neil Jordan on the Twisted Consequences of Loneliness

It’s somewhat of a cinephilic fantasy to be terrorized by Isabelle Huppert, who has made a career out of sadomasochistic affairs (The Piano Teacher), psychopathic matriarchy (Merci Pour le Chocolat), and unconventional rape revenge (Elle). It’s eerily perfect, then, that the French actress’ latest role is that of a stalker—a seemingly genial old lady named Greta who becomes increasingly attached to,

Director Karyn Kusama Goes her Own Way

Director Karyn Kusama is one of Hollywood’s boldest voices. Her films are visually arresting, emotionally taxing and riveting to the last frame. Whether it’s a pugilist drama like Girlfight or a horror film like The Invitation, Kusama’s gifts bend genres to her will.

Her most recent film, Destroyer, was the year’s most unsettling crime thriller—by a mile. Starring Nicole Kidman in another impressive,

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse’s Oscar-Nominated Directors on Being Bold

*In the run-up to this Sunday’s Oscars telecast, we’re sharing some of our favorite interviews with nominees. 

Directors Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, and Rodney Rothman asked themselves a question: how could they tell a story and be as wild and bold as they could adapting a comic book to the big screen that hadn’t been seen before. Enter Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Now the three are Oscar-nominated directors,

Isabel Coixet’s Ravishing Elisa and Marcela Mark’s Netflix’s 1st Film at Berlinale

Spain legalized same-sex marriage in 2005, the first nuptials of the kind were held in the country in 1901. The true story of Elisa Sánchez Loriga and Marcela Gracia Ibeas, wed by an unwitting priest, is the subject of Isabel Coixet’s black-and-white competition entry to the 69th Berlinale film festival.

As far as the women’s intertwined lives, in Coixet’s telling, the wedding is almost a footnote. Elisa and Marcela opens in 1920s Argentina,

How Free Solo‘s Oscar-Nominated Directors get it Done

Jimmy Chin is a professional climber and filmmaker who specializes in nail-biting documentaries that take place on ludicrously sheer mountain faces. His work demands a supernatural degree of calm. Today, however, Chin sounds like just another irrepressibly stoked dude. He’s fresh from the annual luncheon for Academy Award nominees. Alfonso Cuarón, it turns out, had seen Chin’s latest film, Free Solo, which is nominated for Best Documentary Feature.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse’s Oscar-Nominated Directors on Being Bold

Directors Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, and Rodney Rothman asked themselves a question: how could they tell a story and be as wild and bold as they could adapting a comic book to the big screen that hadn’t been seen before. Enter Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Now the three are Oscar-nominated directors, and their film has become a critical and commercial smash hit.

The coming of age story from Sony Pictures Animation follows Miles Morales (Shameik Moore),

Cold Pursuit Director Hans Petter Moland on Liam Neeson’s Killer Plowman

In Hans Petter Moland‘s Cold Pursuit, Liam Neeson plays a humble snowplow driver named Nels Coxman living in the winter wonderland of Kehoe, Colorado. The film opens with Nels receiving Kehoe’s ‘Citizen of the Year’ award, which hs gratefully (and awkwardly) accepts. His beaming wife, Grace (Laura Dern) looks on. All is well. For roughly four minutes or so. In no time at all, the fuzzy, warm feelings give way to the title’s promise;