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
It's rare that you can promote a love story and feel fear in a film.
I enjoy setting the scene and coming up with interesting frames. 'True Detective' was a very hands-on set.
I don't believe happiness comes out of material gain, for sure.
I began writing fictional stories and little screenplays when I was in fifth grade.
Sundance took me on my first film and from there sort of launched my career.
No, ramen's not good for you. But in Japan, our favorite thing to do after drinking all night, especially in Sapporo where it's freezing cold, is to go to the ramen place at two, three in the morning.
I have a really good relationship with Focus Features; we had a wonderful time working together on 'Sin Nombre.'
Collaborations aren't easy, but you definitely get something highly different than had you done it on your own. That's part of the experience.
I think I have this field around me that makes electronics work bad. It's not like an entropy thing; it happens very quickly.
I eventually want to do writing on all the films, but not necessarily to be the writer. Writing is a painful, painful thing; it really is.
I think I learned discipline on 'Jane Eyre.' Charlotte Bronte's dialogue, the intellectual duel between Rochester and Jane Eyre's character, is so compelling that you didn't have to do much with the placement of cameras.
When I was a kid, I knew the black and white version of 'Jane Eyre,' and I guess I became interested in the idea of romantic love - of unrequited love and the tragedies of that; of what are the important things in life; what should one value over other materials.
There's a lot of two-hander dialogue in 'True Detective,' and I needed to place those guys in locations where there were other levels of visual storytelling. It didn't necessarily have to move the plot forward, but it had to add tone or add to the overall feeling.
You need the actors to feel as much ownership of the performance and the direction of the story as you do to get the most out of everyone's potential. Part of it is just making sure we all have the same vision.