{"id":297538,"date":"2025-10-12T15:00:20","date_gmt":"2025-10-12T15:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/297538\/"},"modified":"2025-10-12T15:00:20","modified_gmt":"2025-10-12T15:00:20","slug":"chloe-zhao-on-hollywood-money-and-neurodivergence-as-a-superpower","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/297538\/","title":{"rendered":"Chlo\u00e9 Zhao on Hollywood, Money and Neurodivergence as a ‘Superpower’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tDuring a conversation at London Film Festival<\/a> on Sunday, Oscar-winning director Chlo\u00e9 Zhao got candid about Hollywood, the difficulty of financing films, how neurodivergence has impacted her storytelling and more. <\/p>\n

\n\tZhao\u2019s devastating historical drama \u201cHamnet<\/a>\u201d \u2014 about the personal tragedy that led to the creation of William Shakespeare\u2019s \u201cHamlet,\u201d starring Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley \u2014 held its European premiere at the festival on Saturday night, where it was welcomed with plenty of emotion (and a surprise appearance from producer Steven Spielberg<\/a>). Speaking about making the film, Zhao said that the experience made her \u201cvery passionate about rediscovering and remembering some older ways of storytelling that have been forgotten in our society.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cBefore we made everything factual and reasonable, there was a time where we\u2019d see stories in different ways \u2014 from our dreams, our vision quests, from going into nature and listening to the birds,\u201d she said. \u201cSo the language of ambiguity is, to me, vital for the health of a society. And I think even in Hollywood, in the film industry, we are not very good at preserving the language of ambiguity. If logos and mystery are in harmony, we would be living in a much better world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHowever, Zhao acknowledged that it\u2019s oftentimes difficult to get stories like these financed for the big screen. Though profiting from a film is not her end goal, the filmmaker acknowledged that \u201cmoney is really important.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMaybe it\u2019s because I\u2019m Chinese, I don\u2019t know what is it, but I\u2019m so afraid of owing people money. I don\u2019t like it. I don\u2019t like being in debt. I want the people who put the money into my films to get the money back,\u201d Zhao said. \u201cI don\u2019t believe that my vision and whatever importance of my film should make people lose money. It\u2019s just not for me. I try really hard to get financiers or studios to say, how much are you comfortable giving me so that you can survive as a company, please. And then I\u2019ll do it within that. So I think it\u2019s really helpful because limitations, I promise, are your best friend.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAsked by an audience member at the end of the talk how being neurodivergent has impacted the creativity of her storytelling, Zhao said proudly: \u201cI think it\u2019s a superpower, I really do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI think we\u2019re all on the spectrum of something. Everyone\u2019s brain is so different, so unique \u2014 nature and nurture combined. And I find that I question sometimes, is it that I am the not typical one or has our world become a little too inhabitable? Is it too loud, is it too bright, is it too fast?\u201d she continued. \u201cSo I try to not think of it as less or different, but think about if I tune into how I function, then I\u2019m going to create a world, not just on camera, but also off camera that is going to be healthy for me. And those who gravitate towards me like that about me, so that\u2019s probably what they enjoy as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tShe concluded: \u201cIt\u2019s really important and actually a good service to society for you to honor what you need first because that might be exactly what your environment might need as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHamnet\u201d world premiered at the Telluride Film Festival last month, where it made a huge splash and sparked Oscar buzz, and went on to win the People\u2019s Choice Award at TIFF. In Variety\u2018s review<\/a>, chief film critic Peter Debruge wrote that the film is \u201cso emotionally raw as to be almost excruciating at times.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tZhao broke through with her 2020 drama \u201cNomadland,\u201d starring Frances McDormand, which won the Oscars for best picture and director. With her directing win, Zhao became the first woman of color to win in the category. \u201cHamnet\u201d is her latest film after directing the Marvel movie \u201cEternals\u2019 in 2021. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHamnet\u201d will receive a limited theatrical release in the U.S. and Canada from Focus Features beginning Nov. 27 before expanding wide on Dec. 12. It will release in the U.K. on Jan. 9 via Universal Pictures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"During a conversation at London Film Festival on Sunday, Oscar-winning director Chlo\u00e9 Zhao got candid about Hollywood, the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":297539,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[102090,171,100615,151744,53,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-297538","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-chloe-zhao","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-hamnet","11":"tag-london-film-festival","12":"tag-movies","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115361797038724207","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297538\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}