Does Sean Baker have any on-set superstitions? Who does Luca Guadagnino want to photograph next? What’s the most difficult scene Denis Villeneuve has ever shot? The filmmakers behind the 2025 Directors Issue answer a few of W’s questions.
From left, Alexis Zabé (director of photography), Sean Baker (director), Samantha Quan (producer), and Bunsen (dog).
Alexis Zabé, Sean Baker, and Samantha Quan
What’s your favorite opening scene of a movie?
Baker: George A. Romero’s masterpiece Dawn of the Dead, especially the first shot, which is why I ripped it off in Red Rocket.
What are your on-set superstitions?
Baker: Don’t talk about festival acceptances, awards, or anything else that could possibly jinx it.
Which actor, living or dead, do you wish you could shoot?
Zabé: Charlie Chaplin. He could make you laugh, cry, and feel deeply without uttering a word.
You’re given an unlimited budget. What’s the logline for the movie you’d make?
Baker: A cute little Chihuahua is bitten by a vampire bat and becomes a vampire Chihuahua.
Which movie is criminally underrated?
Zabé: Baraka. This is the movie we show the aliens when they turn up and ask us what this place is all about.
Which movies made you want to be a producer?
Quan: Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, by David Lynch, and Tangerine, by Sean Baker.
From left, Luca Guadagnino and Ayo Edebiri on set.
Luca Guadagnino
What are your on-set superstitions?
I have no superstitions, ever, and I surrender to anything that happens on set.
What’s your favorite opening scene of a movie?
The opening of John Carpenter’s Halloween is so striking, so perverse, so upsetting, and so cinematically brilliant that it’s for sure the first that came to mind.
Which actor, living or dead, do you wish you could photograph?
There are two, actually: Jack Nicholson, a complete and total icon, and Gene Hackman, one of the greatest actors who ever lived.
Denis Villeneuve and Greig Fraser snap a highly conceptual selfie.
Denis Villeneuve and Greig Fraser
What’s the most difficult scene you’ve ever shot?
Villeneuve: Early in my career, the most difficult scenes were the ones where I felt that an actor would not be able to deliver what I was dreaming to get on camera. I’ve learned with experience that there is a point where there’s nothing you can do but creative aikido—swim around that rock to find open water again.
Which actor, living or dead, do you wish you could shoot?
Fraser: Orson Welles. He was an actor who could command the screen, and his filmmaking prowess was unmatched.
Which movie made you want to be a director?
Villeneuve: Raiders of the Lost Ark is definitely one of them. I was 13 years old when it came out. I remember watching The Making of ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ and being mesmerized by Spielberg’s incredible, contagious creative spirit. It absolutely blew me away. It put dynamite in my brain and heart.
