'The Interview': Chloé Zhao Is Yearning to Know How to Love

Key Takeaways

Director Chloe Zhao blends collaborative directing with embracing spontaneous moments on set.
Zhao explores personal fears of rejection, abandonment, and death, linking them to artistic drive.
She critiques modern society's loss of mystery and enchantment, seeking profound connection.
Art and spiritual practices are central to Zhao's journey of self-discovery and belonging.

Director Chloe Zhao discusses how basic emotions, including feelings of rejection, impact artists, especially those with difficult childhoods.
She describes filmmaking as a solitary process, akin to a 'wandering samurai' on a personal journey.
Zhao appreciates award season events for bringing filmmakers together, recalling her early struggles with festivals and labs.
She suggests a system where directors could shadow each other on set to continue learning and collaboration.

The guest shares her personal journey of confronting the fear of death, influenced by author Maggie O'Farrell.
She explains how this fear impacts her ability to live and love fully.
Zhao connects this confrontation to a 'midlife crisis' that serves as a catalyst for personal rebirth.

The guest describes her current phase as the end of a 'chrysalis period' following a year and a half of profound discomfort and self-dismantling.
She explores the fear of abandonment and its connection to a person's ability to love and belong, drawing parallels to being 'cast out' from a tribe.
The host asks about a potential familial separation when Zhao moved from China to the UK at age 14, which Zhao acknowledges is an area of investigation.
Zhao links fears of failure, rejection, and not belonging to her professional life, referencing awards shows and the impact of losing family connections.

The guest discusses the idea that the modern world has lost a sense of enchantment due to science and rationality, contrasting it with pre-modern times.
She questions whether people still experience enchantment and how to cultivate it, expressing a personal passion for rediscovering these tools.
Zhao critiques Plato and Aristotle, suggesting they omitted the 'mystery' part from their teachings, leading to a Western civilization focused on reason over mystery.
This, she argues, has led to a spiritual hunger and loneliness in modern life, as access to profound experiences has become limited.

The guest recounts watching Terence Malick's 'The Thin Red Line' and Wes Anderson's 'Rushmore' in the same week during her adolescence.
She describes this experience as 'mind-blowing,' as the films revealed aspects of her inner self that she hadn't been able to articulate or see depicted.
Zhao states these films fundamentally changed her, helping her understand personal feelings of alienation and yearning for connection.

The guest explains that art, including films like Wong Kar-wai's 'Happy Together' and Terrence Malick's 'The Tree of Life,' helps people remember who they are and find connection.
She details how 'Happy Together' helped her understand that her intense yearning and feelings of isolation were actually a deep desire for connection and love.
Zhao reveals that Terrence Malick called her, a rare occurrence given his reclusive nature.
She told Malick that his films, including 'The Thin Red Line,' allowed her to feel part of a lineage of storytellers, humorously admitting she 'ripped him off' with her own work, referencing 'Eternals' and 'The Tree of Life'.

The host questions Zhao about her apparent contradiction of desiring connection while struggling to give love, asking if this is expressed through her work.
Zhao explains that people often create work that reflects their aspirations, drawing a parallel to Shakespeare's Hamlet, who could express grief through his play when unable to grieve himself.
She describes a struggle with emotional extremes, moving between vulnerability and a desire to disappear.
Zhao offers a simpler analogy, comparing emotional flux to natural movement and the fear of holding on, relating it to her childhood obsession with the game 'Sims' to control virtual characters and avoid change.

The guest shares that she has completed foundational coursework as a death doula and is preparing for the next stage, which would allow her to practice with a mentor.
She emphasizes that death is a solitary, internal experience, regardless of whether loved ones are present, a realization that has impacted her perspective on life.
Zhao recounts observing her mother entering a solitary state in her final moments, reinforcing the idea that dying is an individual journey.
She discusses the ongoing effort to find pleasure and awe in both positive and negative experiences, learning to process difficult emotions as 'compost' rather than avoiding them through numbing.