Cary Fukunaga
Cary Fukunaga
Cary Joji Fukunaga is an American film director, writer, and cinematographer. He is known for writing and directing the 2009 film Sin Nombre, the 2011 film Jane Eyre and for directing and executive producing the first season of the HBO series True Detective, for which he won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series. He has received acclaim for the 2015 war drama Beasts of No Nation, in which Fukunaga was writer, director, producer, and cinematographer...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth10 July 1977
CityOakland, CA
CountryUnited States of America
As a director, your job is to make sure no one for any reason is taken out of the film. Sometimes it's impossible and sometimes things don't come out the way you want them to, but I think you have to work really hard at making the world engrossing and details are a major part of that.
It's pretty awesome to see people dressed up in period clothing and running around on horses and in carriages and all that kind of thing. Part of the fun of making a period film is just that playfulness. It's just like make believe when you're a child except you get to do it for a real job.
I have tremendous faith that there will be greater films to come.
There are a lot of movies I would want to be a fly on the wall for. I would have loved to see the making of Jaws [1975], with all the fears and anxieties it was going to be a complete failure, and then to have it turn into the first blockbuster.
Your movie should lull people into a place of openness and vulnerability. If it is just a diatribe, it's never going to work.
In snowboarding, you're constantly aware that people are so technically brilliant at what they do, and you feel like, "Ugh, I'll never be able to do that."
When people start talking, things happen.
In a city like New York, especially for young professionals who aren't in a family situation, most people don't cook for themselves. This is the only city I've ever lived in where I eat out every night.
The apartments are made for eels.
I started writing stories when I was 9 or 10. I wrote my first screenplay-type document when I was 14.
It's just nice to be able to communicate and be able to identify with a lot of different cultures. I have no idea what it would be like to be just one thing and speak one language. I feel enormously privileged to travel and be able to mingle and speak to people that, had I only known English, I wouldn't have been able to meet.
I think that one of the most exciting things about making films is the sort of reaching out to the world. It's as an ambassador. You realize the more you travel that you are a cultural ambassador for your own country. You never become more patriotic than you do living abroad.
I want to be happy while I make movies and not just do things just to work. I want to do things I spend years on.
You only have so much time in life so everything you do needs to mean something to you.