Todd Field Directs Danielle Deadwyler for W MAGAZINE’s Directors Issue

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In the second of three covers for W Magazine Volume 2, The Directors Issue, on stands March 14th, Academy Award Nominated actor and director Todd Field directs TILL lead actress, Danielle Deadwyler and attempts to channel the film noir spirit of Humphrey Bogart, titled WHAT’S UNDERNEATH, conceived by Field himself. Todd Field wanted to create a cover that poses a question and makes you want to open the magazine in order to find out the answer. In the issue, Field touches on the first time he met Danielle Deadwyler and discusses how the script for TÁR came to be.

Danielle Deadwyler Starring in “What’s Underneath”

Story by Lynn Hirschberg, Directed and Photographed by Todd Field and Styled by Allia Alliata di Montereale

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Sharing his first job in the film industry: “I ran six machines as a projectionist at a second-run movie theater. Some of the films played for months, and I studied them through repeat viewing. Wonderfully varied films like Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull, Steven Spielberg’s Raiders of the Lost Ark, Nicolas Roeg’s Bad Timing: A Sensual Obsession, Robert Redford’s Ordinary People, Lawrence Kasdan’s Body Heat, Barry Levinson’s Diner, Ken Russell’s Altered States, and David Cronenberg’s Scanners.”

On a film from history he wished he had worked on: “There are many. Too many. But today I’ll say Mikhail Kalatozov’s Soy Cuba [I Am Cuba]. It was the most incredible piece of film poetry, and virtually impossible technically when it was released back in 1964. Alfonso Cuarón turned me on to this film, and all of us owe a debt of thanks to Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola for their efforts in restoring what was once a lost and forgotten masterpiece.”

On Deadwyler’s performance in Till: “Grief is told by the survivors, and she made the pain of the living powerful in a way that went well beyond a movie performance.”

Discussing working on the first original screenplay that he’s made into a movie, Tar: “I was home thinking about the film business, and Lydia Tár occurred to me. The people I’ve met in the industry are difficult, challenging, formidable, and brilliant all at once. They have power because of those qualities. And whether that power is a boost or a curse was a subject that I couldn’t ignore. I also saw the complicity: We are attracted to brilliant monsters—we both love them and want to watch them be destroyed.”

[Photo Credit: Todd Field for W Magazine]

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