Britt Rentschler is the star of Pretty Problems, a smart and hilarious new indie adult comedy which she also produced and helped write with screenwriter and co-star Michael Tennant. In this episode, she talks about their lengthy commitment to making the story work, building their characters with depth, and the risky but triumphant decision to cast their talented friends in supporting roles rather than famous actors who might have secured more money. She describes how her apprehension toward playing the lead role of Lindsay actually benefited her performance, the ways director Kestrin Pantera brought the best out of everyone, plus […]

The closing title card of the new Western Dead for a Dollar includes the dedication “In Memory of Budd Boetticher.” Had director Walter Hill worked during Boetticher’s era, he too may have churned out exceptional, modestly budgeted Westerns at a clip of roughly one a year, like Boetticher did for Columbia Pictures in the 1950s. Instead, Hill has settled for being one of a handful of contemporary repeat practitioners of the Western, a disparate group ranging from Clint Eastwood to the Coen Brothers, Kevin Costner to Quentin Tarantino. Hill’s first Western, The Long Riders—a retelling of the Jesse James story that […]

Dolly de Leon is a Filipina veteran actor of film and TV who is now, due to her outstanding performance in Triangle of Sadness, being spoken about with words like “newcomer” and “breakthrough.” That might have something to do with the “I’m the captain now” nature of the role she plays in the Palme d’Or winning film. It’s like the character and the actor are both saying “I have arrived.” In this episode, she describes the dark place she was in right before auditioning for the part, how director Ruben Ostlund’s collaborative approach sparked her dynamic creativity, why watching the […]

If Isabelle Huppert is not your favorite actor, she’s the favorite actor of someone you know. Guaranteed. There’s something about her that is unlike any other actor that has ever been on film. But it’s really hard to talk about what that “something” is. In each performance, in every film she’s made, she has such a command of the character, the text, the frame, that we place her in equal authorship with the directors she’s worked with, who happen to be some of most interesting and important in the last half-century—Jean Luc-Godard, Michael Haneke, Claude Chabrol, Michael Cimino, Claire Denis, […]

This week, Netflix’s Blonde and A24’s God’s Creatures head to streaming and theaters, respectively. The digitally-shot Blonde is a highly stylized look at the life of Marilyn Monroe, shifting aspect ratios and alternating between color and monochrome while employing extreme wide angle lenses, body cam mounts, infrared and more to expressionistically convey Monroe’s perspective. God’s Creatures is the antithesis—austere and somber, captured on 35mm, with an observational point of view distanced from the main characters, a mother in a small Irish fishing village whose life crumbles after providing a false alibi for her son. The films do share one thing in common—cinematographer […]

Xolo Maridueña has been playing Miguel Diaz on the hit series Cobra Kai for five seasons, starting when he was 16 years old. On this episode, he talks about how preparing for his dream role as Blue Beetle (in the eponymous D.C. superhero movie coming out next year) sent him down a road that expanded his acting capabilities in new and exciting ways. Plus he talks about William Zabka’s positive influence on him, and the ways that played into how he took on his leadership duties when he got to be number one on the call sheet. Back To One […]

On a rainy night in a rundown Detroit neighborhood, Tess (Georgina Campbell) arrives at her Airbnb rental only to find the abode double booked and Keith(Bill Skarsgård) already nestled comfortably inside. That’s about all Barbarian’s refreshingly cryptic trailer gives you, along with a few glimpses of the subterranean terror that awaits. So, that’s all I’m going to give away about the plot as well, other than to say that whatever you expect from Barbarian after its first act is most decidedly not what you’re in store for. With the movie in theaters, cinematographer Zach Kuperstein spoke to Filmmaker about recreating […]

Last year, Lashana Lynch made history as 007 in No Time To Die, this year she uses history to energize her powerful performance in The Woman King. In this episode she talks about how filming that movie “barefoot, on that soil,” surrounded by a truly supportive sisterhood, was so significant to her performance. She explains why she doesn’t have (or even want) a go-to preparation process, what choosing the hard road of avoiding stereotypical roles has done for her career, why she cherishes outstanding assistant directors, and much more. Plus she gives us a peek at her role as Miss […]

Australian actor Essie Davis is best known for The Babadook, Game of Thrones, and Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries. This year, she stunned me with two incredible performances in two powerful films. In Nitram, directed by her husband Justin Kurzel, she plays the important and heartbreaking supporting role of Helen, opposite Caleb Landry Jones. In The Justice of Bunny King she broke my heart again, this time playing the house-less titular character who is desperately trying to get her kids out of foster care. It was made pre-pandemic and had a staggered release last year overseas. Look for it in select […]

Filmmaker is proud to announce that we have moved our quarterly digital edition and archive going back to 2005 to Exact Editions, a London-based  company that specializes in digitizing content, selling subscriptions and providing streaming solutions across web, iOS and Android platforms. Our digital edition, which replicates our print edition, is now available to read via Exact Editions across browsers and mobile devices, the latter through a browser or the company’s Exactly app, found in the App and Google Play stores. As a long-time reader of other publications using Exact Editions, I’ve admired the company’s elegant, easy-to-use platform. Issues download quickly, can […]