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

From the New York Times, this is the interview. I'm David Markezi. Chloe Jouh is an anomaly. At only 43, with just five feature films under her belt, she's already established herself as one of cinema's most distinctive and distinguished directors. And she's done it at a time when the movie business is increasingly averse to artistic risk and originality, qualities on display in all her work. She started with independent film, including the sparsely poetic neo-western Nomadland, which won Academy Awards for Best Picture and for Zhaou, Best Director. She then tried her hand at an ambitious mega budget Marvel movie, Eternals. And her latest is last fall's heart-wrenching drama Hamlet, an adaptation of Maggie O' Farrell's historical novel about the death of Shakespeare's young son from the plague and the grief his parents experienced after. It won two Golden Globes and is up for several Academy Awards, including best director. So how has she done it? Because as I learned firsthand, Jau is an enigmatic, even somewhat mystical presence in person. Not exactly the hotshot personality we often associate with big-time Hollywood directors. But as it turns out, Zhaouh isn't much interested in simple or straightforward answers. Here's my conversation with Chloe Zhaouh.

Chloe, thank you for taking the time to come speak with us today. I appreciate it.

Thank you for having me.

I want to start with an award season question. Your eyes just glazed over a little. Sorry.

No, it's excitement.

Yeah, that was a look of excitement.

Like an animal in the jungle.

There's obviously a lot of award season buzz around Hamlet. By the time this interview comes out, we'll know what nominations the film did or didn't get. But right now, the thing that I'm curious about is what What the whole awards rigmarole stirs up for you? Because I imagine it could involve feelings of envy or competition, or it involves salesmanship or gladhanding, which I feel like are not necessarily the kinds of feelings or ideas that are interesting to you or come naturally to you. How do you deal with this moment?

I love that that's almost like a form of compliment you just did. You think of me a lot more highly than...

Maybe you like doing it.

I don't know. But I think all those quite basic emotions, none of us can escape it. And especially artists, so many of us, majority of us, started telling stories because we didn't have the easiest childhood. So when your work, which is the only way that you can see connection and validation since you're little child is being compared and judged. You could go as far as feeling a rejection of that is a rejection of who you are and your ability to belong to a tribe or be safe or be loved. You could go that far. It does go that far to me at times. But what I like about it, I don't know if people know, is that filmmaking is quite a lonely process. At speaking as director, you're like a Ronan. You're like a Samurai.

A wandering Samurai.

Yeah. You're getting hired to do jobs and jobs and jobs, and then you create this family, and then you have to leave again. So a worse season, especially if someone like me who came up from independent films and having to go festivals and labs after labs to even get money to grands and to make my first film, I was exposed to a lot of my fellow filmmakers over a decade ago. So to be paid, to be brought together and to see each other, and to hang out at these events and round tables and stuff, it's actually really nice. I try to ask them to let me come to their set and just shadow people. I think there should be a system where directors get to be on each other's set. Otherwise, how do we keep learning?

What do you think someone could learn from watching you work?

How to embrace chaos. I mean, pretty much Hamlet was created that way. For example, when Hamlet died, spoiler alert. I don't think you can spoil this film. No.

It's a historical fact.

Yeah. Someone died, someone wrote a play. Hamlet died, and on that day, Jessie and I would not talk about. We don't really talk about the scene coming in. In the morning, she would do a lot of fever writing about her dreams, and then she would pick some music. And so as soon as I get to set, I will just put the music on repeat. So the whole set is got harmonized to the vibration she wants to be vibrating in. Other than a conversation about which set up we want to do, we just go in there and do it. And so when she laid out that very gatchel scream of grief, that was not something that was planned from me nor her. But I do believe it didn't just come from her. It came from the collective, the village. And when that happens, I can feel it. And it's the most exciting thing for me as a director because I go, there's no way any of us could have thought of that. And because that is truth happening in the moment. I will bottle that up and I will define it in the edit, and I will make sure it goes into the world.

It's so interesting to hear you talk about the practicalities of directing for you because often when I've heard other directors talk or read about other directors. There's recurring images or tropes of how a director behaves. It's like, I want to say- What is it? I want to say it's Francis Ford Coppola who said this. I could be wrong, but he compared being a director being a ringmaster of a circus that's inventing itself every day. Or sometimes you hear directors compared with generals or something like that. These are all very, to my mind, alpha, aggressive, macho metaphors for the job of directing on the day. That's great, too. But it's so not what you're describing. I just wonder if you could talk a little bit about how you handle the necessary leadership aspects of being a director and making a movie.

I I like thinking about myth. If you think about in myth and in archetypes, what are the types that can lead traditionally? Yes, you have a general, but you also have a priestess. Both can evoke the desire for people to get excited to follow their vision. It doesn't mean that the example you give of what Francis said that he is that and I'm this. Both of these two archetypes within ourselves. So there is a general inside of me, but there's also a priestess inside of me. It just depends on the scene. It depends on the film. And some filmmakers have a bit more priestess energy in them than general. But both can lead, and both are needed. If you only have the priestess, it's total chaos. Black Hole If you only have the general, it's total order and just one beam of light and nothing else. But I like to be in those two extreme polarities. I suppose to constantly have my hands in everything, controlling everything, but also not fully controlling everything. No, I like to be total surrender and then total control.

I have a historically inclined question for you. In Shakespeare's time, the time period in which Hamlet is set, the death of a child was a much more common occurrence than it is now, at least in rich Western countries. I assume that as a result of that, people just had a different perspective on what it meant to lose a child or different feelings or expectations. I'm just curious how you thought about that with your film and if you think it's possible to recreate older emotional perspectives.

That's a really good question. I think about that all the time. Maggie said that she doesn't believe it's possible that the grief is any less.

Maggie O' Farrell, the author.

The author, yeah. She said that to me from the start. I tend to agree with her because even though things are so different, our biology hasn't changed. The design that we have to want to protect a child will not change. However, the stories we attach to that pain, which is suffering, might be different because they also have a different relationship with the Unseen back then. I recently trained to be a death doula.

Really?

In the UK. I just finished level one training, Foundation educational training. In one of the training sessions, we had to research Indigenous cultures from around the world, how they deal with death and dying, both today and also in the past. You can see that the grief of losing a loved one doesn't change. However, the societal understanding of what death is and the space it gives to grief and the ceremonies and how it's embedded in the culture has shifted so much and the medicalization of death. Also in the modern world, when death is no longer seen as a natural part of life, because now it's about staying alive as long as we can, there's almost some shame around death because it's weak or something, or it shouldn't happen. There's so much of that starting being attached to death and dying that actually caused suffering that's not natural to the human condition. I think that's different.

I want to rip up all my questions and ask you more about wanting to be a death doula.

We have another session in a few minutes.

Why are you interested in becoming a death doula?

Because I have been terrified of death my whole life, I still am so afraid. Because I've been so afraid, I haven't been able to live fully. I haven't been able to love with my heart open because I'm so scared of losing love, which is a form of death. When you're in your 40s, which is great, by the way, midlife crisis is the best thing that can happen to you because what it does is you're on your way to a rebirth. You can't run from this feeling. Your body is changing and you can feel death. Because I'm so scared of it, I have no choice but to start to develop a healthier relationship with it, where I'm not going to make it. The second half of life would be too hard.

It's a way of facing your fear.

It's a way of understanding because making Hamlet helped me understand that I just know there is another way. I just have a feeling that Whoever designed this have decided that you will be born and then die. You will love deeply, but then lose love. It's almost like a cosmic joke. We're the only one in this in nature to have a problem with that process. We must be designed to know how to die. It shouldn't be this terrifying that I can't even live. That must be not the intention.

It's not this terrifying to everyone.

I hope not, but I do know that a lot of the issues we have in the world comes from, ultimately, that deep fear of death.

Are you afraid of your own nonexistence? Are you afraid of the pain of death?

I think it's impermanence. The impermanence. In Hamlet, there's a line that goes, All living things must die, passing through nature to eternity. If in your life, eternity doesn't exist because you didn't grow up with spirituality or religion, so the eternity part is out. You also lost your connection with nature, even your own body, your own body wisdom. Then passing through nature part of that sentence is gone. All you have left is all living things must die. That's no fun. And that's like, Wait, well, then what's the point? So you separate it from the one-ness. But for me, I feel separated often from that when-ness. That illusion of separation makes me afraid to connect, makes me afraid to create freely or even just live in the way I want to live.

You alluded to a midlife crisis. Is that something you're currently experiencing?

I'm at the... If it's four seasons, I'm at the end of winter, beginning of spring. I'm coming back up Yeah. Actually, a better metaphor, I like metaphor, speaking a metaphor, because it makes more sense to me. In the chrysalis period, I have passed the deepest part of the decomposing from the caterpillar, let's put it that way, which was extremely uncomfortable for a year and a half of just sitting there, having every part of who you used to be grounded down.

Can you tell me what did that look like for you?

It looks like Getting out of bed is hard. Being interested in anything, just getting through the day because everything that I used to use to distract myself or everything that I thought is what I wanted in life and everything will be fine if I get them. Or everything that I thought is who I was no longer is. I'm at the end of that. Hamlet, by the way, was what saved me in many ways to have that film during that time.

You said you struggled to connect with people, struggled to feel love. That's very sad.

You have no struggle?

I have tons of struggles in my life. But when you talk about not feeling, are you talking about having problems with feeling love in relationships with your family? I just want to know more about what you mean about that.

If you're terrified of being a descendant, cast out a tribe, then you don't make an effort to belong or truly love from a place of vulnerability and trust. That's really sad because I don't think we're designed to be alone, to do it alone. We're designed as wolves, pack people. But to be cast out your tribe is the most painful thing you can experience or to be abandoned by people that you love and that love you. It doesn't even mean intentionally. Some day could die.

Can I take a stab at something you tell me?

Yeah, I can discern. All my publishers can come in, throw a bottle at you, one or the other.

When you talk about being cast out of your tribe- I'm discerning. What do you mean?

I know what you're going to say.

I'm going to ask about family stuff. Oh, okay. Yeah. You grew up in China and then moved to the United States when you were 14?

No, actually, I moved to the UK first. Uk first? Yeah.

Was there some familial separation there that's related to the casting out you're talking about?

I can't really go into it, but I will answer it the best I can is that it is an investigation I have been doing in the last four years of where does that come from. I think it's a lot older than I feel like even in this life. I really do. You started by asking me about a worse season.

It feels like a long time ago.

But it's relevant because what is this fear of failing? What What is this fear when my film gets rejected by the critics? What is this feeling if the box office is terrible? What if I lose? I look around at an awards show, and I look at the tables, and then when the winner is announced, and I look at the faces of the people who didn't win, and I try to feel like, What are they feeling? At best, it's like that person must have an easier childhood. At worst, it's like, I don't belong. They reject me. I might as well just die.

Do you think people sitting around the tables at award shows are having that feeling?

I think there's a few, probably, and probably more than that. Because then what if work is your sense of belonging? What if you feel like you don't belong anywhere but with your family? Then what if your family is gone? It makes me realize any belonging has a risk of being cast out. Then you have to ask this. People might roll their eyes when I say this, but that home, the one that cannot be taken away, is the one within. It's the one that you connect with the divine, with this great mystery that you have different culture of different word for it. If you do a ayahuasca ceremony or plant medicine, you feel that, that whenness. You have no fear in those moments. That's why warriors would take medicine before they go into- Have you done ayahuasca ceremonies? No comment. No, I have not done ayahuasca ceremony. I have experienced facilitated plant medicine healing journeys by my therapist. I've experienced that wellness that when all the stuff goes away, you really do feel like you're one with everything and truly no fear. To answer your question about did it happen when I left China to go to school, or did it happen when a film of mine didn't work out, did it happen when- Yeah, I'm trying to locate the source of the feeling you're talking about.

I tried that for many, many years because we have to understand why. We must know because that's how we feel safe. We must understand why this thing happened. But I got to a point where I realized that even the need to understand where it came from is a form of control and it's a form of fear. I let that go a little bit, and now it's more about, can I sit in that? And maybe that is the great paradox of what it means to be human. It is to constantly hold that attention of to be or not to be, to love or to be abandoned. This is a long way for me to avoid your question because I think this could be interpreted very simplistically if I were to try to pinpoint one moment in my life that this made me. I think we try to look at trauma that way. It's that. Because once you pinpoint it, then you can fix it. But it's not like that. Sorry, I'm not giving That's okay.

I was also just thinking, when you brought up the to be or not to be, the stupid thought in my head was like, Oh, that William Shakespeare really had some good ideas.

That guy, dude. That guy. I have to say, I really- Underrated. I'm derated. I'm derated. Shakespeare. I used to think, Oh, he just write. But then I think he is actually like a jury. I think I really do. I think he's tapped into the on scene. Because the symbolism, the archetype that he creates is being used in in-depth psychology. It's so mirroring all the great myth all around the world. You go, he must be on something.

He has his finger on something, yeah.

Or maybe there were mushrooms growing in Strasbourg. In Strasbourg, yeah. I got to say, some of his plays, you think he must be on something. I didn't I did not say that, by the way. I did not. Shakespeare is not going to have a problem. To suggest William Shakespeare talk a mushroom. The director of him did not say that, for the record.

But maybe.

But maybe.

The question I want to end on for this part of the conversation is, there was a German sociologist named Max Weber. I know. It's like the late 19th century, early 20th century. He had this idea that the modern world has become disenchanted, that because of science and rationality, that we've lost a sense of enchantment about the world, that people who lived in a pre-modern time, it was just their birthright was to have a sense of enchantment about the world.

Like awe.

Awe, yeah. Or one might have felt that spirits were present or ghosts were present. But my hunch is that you do experience enchantment. Is that true? Also, how might one cultivate a sense of enchantment?

Beautiful question, really. I have deep feelings about that question, and it is a passion I have now to search for bringing back some tools of cultivating that enchantment for everyone. Everyone should have access to that, not just people who are artists or people who went to school to study. I do have to... Plato and Aristotle did great things, but I do have some problems with them as well. I think they talk Hot take. I think I feel, right? Again, I know very little. I won't claim I know, but my instinct makes me feel that there were students of great mystics. And then for whatever reason, they seem to be leaving out of the mystery part, out of a lot of their teachings. Instead, they did keep it for themselves, but the bedrock of Western civilization became about rationality and reason as opposed to a mystery. I feel because of that, Suddenly, only certain people have access to the divine, to the unseen, to the underworld. However, you want to name this realm where great messages comes from. You shouldn't have to pay money to feel you're connected to some bigger thing because a pop star is the only person who has that connection with the divine.

Actually, you yourself of waking up in the morning, has those tools to feel that aliveness and enchantment. Then creativity, imagination, and this access to something beyond became something that only if you have certain skills to learn in a school, do you have access to. As a result, there's a spiritual hunger in modern life. It doesn't matter. We have so much more, and yet there's a deep loneliness and soul level of hunger and emptyness that I have felt in my life and still struggling with. I think it's because we forgot that we have that ability.

Chloe, thank you so much for talking with me today. I really enjoyed it.

I did, too. Thank you.

After the break, I talk to Chloe again, and she tells me about the surprising way she coped with uncertainty when she was growing up.

I would spend hours and hours and hours and hours and hours playing Sims so that I could control these virtual characters. Hello, David.

Hi, Chloe. I've been looking forward to speaking with you again, so thank you for making the time.

Of course.

I felt like our first conversation was really... The energy kept accumulating. We got deeper and deeper the longer we went. And now that it's been a little while since we spoke, it might be a little difficult to get right back into it.

Well, when we're on set, if that happens, we take a minute and we drop in physically.

How do you drop in physically?

How do you drop in physically? Yeah, what do you do? Okay, so put your hand in front of you like this. Yeah, you don't have to lift it all the way up. Then just move towards it slowly and stop when you can feel the other hand.

Move my hand close together?

Yeah, and just very slowly. Then at some point, you're going feel the energy of the other hand, like there's a ball in there. Do you feel it?

Sure.

Yeah, exactly. It's right there. Close your eyes. Yeah. Then Can you let that energy between your hand just grow a little bit? You're going to feel that your palm getting warmer, like you're forming a ball. Yeah, like Dragon Ball Z. You're about to fire.

All right.

All right. You open your eyes.

All right. Let's just do it. Let's just do it. We're ready. We're ready. I just want to ask one more question about your adolescence or your form of yours. Sure. Now, I know the director, Terrence Malik, was important for you or is important for you. I have a distinct memory of being 16 years old and seeing Terrence Malik's Thin Red Line and then Wes Anderson's Rushmore, maybe within the same week when they came out in the theaters back then. It was a totally mind-blowing week of movie going for me were both because I didn't really understand that movies could do what those two movies did, and also because I felt like something about both those two films in different ways. They showed me something that I already understood about myself but hadn't quite really been able to articulate for myself or seen depicted in a film. As a result, I think it really, both those films, I can say, changed in In some ways, changed who I was at the time and maybe still now. I want to know if you have any similar experiences with film where you saw films and then after seeing them, understood yourself better.

What was it when you said you feel like it made you understand the things that you couldn't quite? Yeah. What was it?

With Thin Red Line, there was a... You've seen that movie, right? Yeah, of course.

Sorry.

Terrence Malek, World War II. The simplest way of describing it would be Terrence Malek's World War II drama.

I think it's one of the greatest war films ever made.

But despite being a war film, or maybe because of being a war film, the The thing that touched me so deeply was that there was a mysticism in that movie and a transcendental feeling about the natural world and a transcendent visual poetry to that film that I hadn't seen in a movie before that, that I just felt connected with so deeply. Then with Rushmore, there was a combination of alienation and open-heartedness that I certainly had been feeling back then. Then again, just to see it represented so beautifully, like I said, felt like it made me understand something about myself.

Oh, that's really beautiful. I think it was One Car Way is Happy Together.

A beautiful movie.

Yeah. Of course, Terrence Malek's Tree of Life and the New World. But Happy Together, it was when I was younger. Will you describe your experience? I that is the reason why we have art and storytelling. It's not trying to teach us something that we don't know. It's trying to help us remember who we are to bring us back to the source. For me, that film made me realize that this deeply uncomfortable tension I feel in my body, this yearning that It sometimes feels like it's just going to consume me, it is actually this loneliness, this isolation that film captured. On the other side of it, it's actually my deep, deep yearning for connection, and for relatedness, and for love, and that there's nothing wrong with it. And that film is full of mystery, so it's the thin right line. And that's why when we're going through our greatest heartbreak and most difficult time, we don't look for facts. We look for poetry because it allows us to stay in the mystery.

I have to tell you a quick little anecdote about a tree of life. That's the one that has the flashbacks to the time of dinosaurs, right? Yeah. I remember seeing that movie at the BAM Theater in Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Academy of Music. There was an older couple sitting beside me who I'm sure ever bought a ticket for that movie because they thought it was just a Brad Pitt movie. They didn't really understand what they were getting into. They were muttering to each other the whole time. Then there's one scene in that film where a predator dinosaur puts its foot on the chest of a smaller dinosaur, but then lets the smaller dinosaur go.

Because he was already dying. He was dying.

It's like that dinosaur has shown an act of mercy. It's like a pretty wild film. The lady beside me just says, Morris, what is this movie? He got up and walked out of the room.

That's such a big moment that thing for me because he is suggesting that Grace is the natural state of the universe. And that's what Terry believes in. I've seen that film, I don't know how many times. As many times I've seen Happy Together. Yeah, I have never met him. Terrence Malley. Never spoken to him. But on January first this year, I got a phone call from a unknown number. Well, a number I don't recognize. I thought it was the dog workers I was interviewing. I said, Hello. And then I hear this very soft voice and goes, Hello, this is Terrence.

Oh, no.

I was thinking, Terrence, which Terrance? For the first 30 seconds, I was still wondering if it was actually him as he's talking about Hamlet. Oh, what did he say to you? I can't share that.

Give me the gist. Because Terrence Malik, famously, he doesn't give interviews. I mean, as far as the media is concerned, he's reclusive.

Yeah, it was surreal. But I won't share what he said, but I can share with you. This is something that go back to the same right line. I said to him that I feel that I come from a lineage that is fond, not necessarily... I'm still trying to get back to the lineage of storytellers from my own culture, from the Chinese culture. I'm slowly working my way there. But I didn't have access to that, just life circumstances. I came to the West, and I was, even as a storyteller, wasn't sure what's my lineage. His films allowed me to become a part of a lineage. I feel that I come from his lineage. Even though he never told me as a student, Or I didn't give him a choice, I told him. But it is very significant as a storyteller because you feel like you belong somewhere.

It's also nicer to say I come from his lineage rather than my rip him off with all those shots of wind gently blowing through the natural landscape.

That's really funny you said that. I said, There's a fine line between what I just said, and I pretty much copied a lot of yours. He says, Oh, no. I have no shame around that. In Eternals, the sequence of the creation of the universe was very humbly inspired by the sequence function of life. You will see exact shots.

There's something I want you to try and help me understand a little bit more about you. You talk about your desire for connection, but then you also described yourself as someone who has never been able to give love fully. I wonder, is it that you're able to express that side of you through your work, but not so much in life? Neither your work nor you, seems like they're evidence of someone who has a problem with connection.

You can't judge book by its cover. No. Well, thank you. That's really kind, by the way. But you make the work that you aspire to be. If you see in Hamlet, well, couldn't express his grief, but he could write a play about it and then create such an intimate environment for people to grieve together. But he himself, maybe hoping through the act of doing that, he himself could grieve. To give him that moment at the end of the film is the grace I'm giving to myself. Say, Hey, you worked pretty hard, too. So maybe, hopefully, your work can give it back to you, the vulnerability that's required to to love fully, to be loved fully. Also, I can see in your eyes the desire to figure out, out of care for me as a human being, to figure out a definition so that we can make things better. Meaning, I guess what I'm trying to say is, unfortunately, I've learned, and I hate that discovery so much I try to resist it every day, is that we're just wondering between the two extreme, which is to be able to really be in the moment and feel and then to love without fear.

Then total just like, anihilation, just wanted to completely disappear into the end of the world where no one can find me. I start over and I never have worry about any of this. I find myself just ping-ponging between the two. I used to think something's wrong with that. But at the end of the midlife crisis, I feel like I came to the conclusion at this moment, that's actually the natural state to be in. We just never been taught how to ride this wave.

Can I say, because I like talking about this stuff, I feel like I have a sense of what you're talking about, but I could also very easily imagine somebody listening to what you're saying and thinking, What the hell is she talking about?

Well, okay, fine. The easier version to digest is in nature, everything moves. That's really scary because we want to hold down to something. Listen, I'll give you another fun little adolescence story since that stuff seems to be interesting to people is that I was so afraid of change and the cycle and movement and being present to them. I was so obsessed with Sims, playing Sims. Oh, so that I would spend hours and hours and hours and hours and hours playing Sims so that I could control these virtual characters. Even Within Sims, I couldn't just let things be. I would tap on it so that they would fall in love and they will have this job. I would just control everything with such extreme to regulate myself. Gosh, I played Sims for so long, years of my life.

I'd like to ask a little more about the work that you're doing as a death doula, which you had mentioned before.

Training. Training. Training. I have not started doing that work.

So you're just learning about it?

Yeah. I completed the foundational course. Then the next stage would be the diploma. Then during that stage, I believe I could practice, but with a mentor before.

Have you ever been with someone at the moment of death? Yes.

Have you?

I have, yeah.

Well, I can't tell you in general of what that is because from what I learned in training that every experience is different. But the biggest thing I learned, both in that experience and also in the training, is that it's a solitary experience. They say, Oh, we all die alone. It is true. Even when you're surrounded by loved ones, it is a very internal, solitary experience, just like birth as you're going through the birth canal. When you see that it is a very individual journey, there's a solace to that. It made me realize I don't have to accumulate and try to make life decisions so that I won't die alone because it's so scary to die alone. It's not true. I know that for a fact, but I'm not telling that to anyone Everyone has their own journey to get to that. But I do not want to spend my life preparing for my death. I want to live. If that decision led to me being completely on my own in the moment of death, I know that it won't make a difference for me in those last moments than being surrounded by accomplishment, security, loved ones.

It's still going to be an individual experience, my experience.

That's also my experience. I was with my mom when she died. It was interesting because I was there with a couple of other close family members there as well. My mom wanted us to all be there. Just knowing the type of person who my mom was, I would have thought that she wanted us to all maybe have our arms around her or something like that. But it was so clear Sorry. It was so clear just in the few moments before it happened that she went somewhere on her own. I also have witnessed the same thing that you witnessed.

Wow. How special it is that you were there to be with her in that moment.

Yeah. I certainly don't see life the same way after that.

Of course. Exactly.

You learn some things.

Exactly.

How do I segue out of that? Let me find... Oh, accomplishment. That's what I was going to talk about.

That thing.

Earlier when we spoke, and it was mostly in the context of Hollywood Awards and things like that, you touched on things like fear of rejection or wanting validation from peers. It was interesting for me to hear you talk about those feelings because purely from the outside, you're an Oscar-winning director, seemingly in the prime of her career, and even you have those kinds of difficult feelings that arise from your professional life. I just wonder, is there any relationship for you between professional success and personal satisfaction?

Ideally, your sense of self-worth is not defined by how many awards you win or how much money your film makes. Ideally, or what the critics say about your film. Ideally. Ideally. But as we have been talking about the paradox, but I'm trying to learn to be more human because the reality is you're going to be dancing between the two. It's like a wave, right? And then that can happen in one night when you go to a worst show. My goodness, it's ups and downs that where they are going. But imagine if you could go to those things and actually enjoy, like a surfer, every part of the wave. You're actually like, Can you have pleasure in losing and being criticized and failing. I have been investigating that because I refuse because I know now at 43 years old, 50% of the time is going to be that side. 50% side is going to be great. The other 50% is going to be shit. I want to find pleasure and joy and all in the shit, too. I'm working on that.

How is it going for you learning to enjoy the shit?

I had a lot of shit in my life. I don't call it shit. I call it the compost. It's the same thing. But it's not something you can just say it. You have to learn the tools. Plenty people are trying to figure this shit out because plenty people come to terms with like, Okay, half of my life is going to be in the compost, and I want to learn how to compost. I don't want to numb myself or buy a new bag or take on a job I don't want, or fall in love with somebody I don't actually love just so that I could avoid the feeling of the compost with a chrysalis. I want to learn how to do it, so I make good life decisions for myself.

Chloe, I think I've asked you everything I want to ask. Yeah, I Well, thank you very much for taking all the time to speak with me. I appreciate it.

Thank you for being very graceful and open.

That's Chloe Zhaouh. Her movie Hamlet is in theater now. To watch this interview and many others, you can subscribe to our YouTube channel at youtube. Com/@symboltheinterviewpodcast. This conversation was produced by Seth Kelly. It was edited by Annabelle Bacon, mixing by Sonia Herrero. Original music by Dan Powell, Leah Shah Damron, and Marion Lozano. Photography by Devon Yalkin. The rest of the team is Priya Matthew, Wyatt Orm, Paula Neudorff, Andrew Karpinski, Joe Bill-Muneos, Amy Moreno, and Brooklyn enters. Our executive producer is Allison Benedict. Next week, Lulu talks with the Jesuit priest Father James Martin about his new boss, Pope Leo. Look, his mission is to preach the gospel, and if the gospel has political implications, so be it. I'm David Markezi, and this is the interview from the New York Times.