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Directors open up about identity, risk and emotional storytelling at Disney's FYC fest
Some of the season's most acclaimed directors came together for Disney's 'Meet the Experts Live: In the Director's Chair,' part of the studio's FYC Fest on May 29 at the Directors Guild Theater. Moderated by Gold Derby, the lively discussion offered an inside look at the creative choices and personal experiences behind their work.
For Out of My Mind, a Disney+ adaptation of Sharon M. Draper's novel, the story's emotional center required a personal touch. Amber Sealey, who directed the project, spoke about her unique approach to capturing the inner life of an 11-year-old nonverbal girl with cerebral palsy. 'I actually went back to my diaries from when I was that age,' she said. 'Lists of people I had crushes on, people I hated — that sort of specificity was really important.' Known for her indie films No Man of God and How Does It Start, Sealey emphasized authenticity, drawing on her experience as a parent. 'I wanted to capture that fleeting time where you're not quite a kid and not quite a teen, but you think you're an adult. It's such fertile ground.'
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Frank Micelotta/PictureGroup for Disney
A similar sense of personal connection shaped Elisabeth Moss's experience directing the series finale of The Handmaid's Tale. Having starred in and produced the show for so many years, stepping behind the camera for its emotional conclusion was especially meaningful. 'I still can't believe I was asked to do that,' she said. 'This show has been my life 365 days a year. Getting to direct that finale meant being with the cast and crew in a new way.' Though already an established actor and producer, Moss found that directing only deepened her creative perspective. 'As an actor, you often feel alone in front of the camera. As a director, you realize how much of it is a team sport.'
The desire to tell a story rooted in real life informed Michael Lennox's approach to Say Nothing, a political thriller set in his hometown of Belfast. The series, adapted from Patrick Radden Keefe's nonfiction best-seller, resonated on a deeply personal level. 'This was about real people. People I know, stories I've lived around,' he said. 'We still struggle in Belfast to talk about the Troubles and the silence around them. This was a way to give voice to that history.' Directing the opening and closing episodes, Lennox described the project as a rare and meaningful career milestone.
Nisha Ganatra shared her experience directing Deli Boys, the FX comedy about two brothers navigating a family deli empire and discussed how the impact of her work extended beyond genre or inspiration. 'I called 'action' and all these heads whipped around,' she recalled. 'At lunch, a bunch of women told me it was the first time they'd heard a female voice say it. That was less than five years ago.' For Ganatra, working in her native language and cultural comfort zone marked a shift. 'Usually I'm convincing people I can tell a story even if I'm not what they expect. But this time, my culture was a superpower.'
Frank Micelotta/PictureGroup for Disney
New creative territory also defined Aletha Jones's work on High Potential, a procedural focused on a woman with an abnormally high IQ who begins consulting for the police. The project, starring Caitlin Olson, stood out to Jones for its emotional layers. 'It was such an emotional script,' she said. 'What made it work was that Caitlin really went there. She was vulnerable, and that vulnerability made the show soulful. You sit down to a procedural for comfort, but you stay for the humanity. We had to get both right.'
Visual ambition took center stage with Paradise, directed by longtime collaborators John Requa and Glenn Ficarra. Known for Crazy, Stupid, Love and This Is Us, the duo tackled Dan Fogelman's dystopian vision of a billionaire who builds an underground city in response to personal tragedy. 'Dan handed us something totally unique. It was wild,' Requa said. Though not involved in writing the series, their partnership with Fogelman felt like a natural extension of their creative history. 'Dan trusted us completely, even when we told him something just wasn't going to work. And he'd say, 'Great, rewrite it.' That kind of trust makes it worth it.'
Moss says she hopes to continue directing in the future but doesn't plan to give up acting. 'I love acting so much and part of that process is working with the directors. Directing is something I definitely would love to keep doing. I did fall very much in love with it. It's very, very difficult job, but it is very rewarding and so I hope to get to do it again. I'd love to do a feature. I'm looking at a couple of things. It has to be something that you feel like only you can do," she said. "You have to feel like in five years, you're still going to want to tell this story and you honestly feel like you're the only person who can do it."
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