“I’m not keen on method actors,” director Joe Wright told The Hollywood Reporter‘s Director Roundtable, “I’m a bit of a method director in the sense that I have to feel their emotions, and I have to identify very, very closely with the character and see the world as they see the world. So really, those characters are always an expression of myself.”
Wright explained because of his method of working, he had to find the similarities between Churchill and himself while making Darkest Hour. “For me the film is about doubt. It’s about self-doubt.”
“I just had an experience of extreme self-doubt,” Wright told the Roundtable, reflecting on his experience of making 2015’s Pan, “which lost about $100M and was universally slated by the critics.”
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“I thought, ‘I don’t understand this world anymore, and I don’t know if I want to be a part of it.'”
Wright, who is known for his adaptions of Atonement, Pride & Prejudice, and Anna Karenina to name a few, went on to say, “Filmmaking is an expression of our soul. It’s who we are at the most fundamental. It’s the closest thing to my essence there is. I’m not very good expressing that in other ways. I’m not very good talking to people, I’m not very good at dinner parties. That’s where I allow myself to be revealed.”
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The full Director Roundtable also features Guillermo del Toro, Angelina Jolie, Greta Gerwig, Denis Villeneuve and Patty Jenkins, and airs on SundanceTV, Sunday, Jan. 21. Tune in to THR.com/roundtables for more roundtables featuring talent from the year’s top films.
