Questions to Ask a Film Director
Questions to ask a film director in an interview, whether you are a student with a profile to write up, the host of a Q&A after a screening, a journalist, or someone about to direct a first film. There are 80, in six groups: openers on how they started and why this film, then prep, actors, the shooting day, the edit and what comes after it, and career and advice. Twelve are written for a documentary director, on access, the people filmed and finding the story in the footage, and they close the Openers, Prep, On set and Edit and after groups. The page is written for interviewing a director about the work. A producer or client meeting a director about a job will get the most from the Prep and On set groups.
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The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
Openers
How did you become a film director?
Why ask it
The plainest question on the page, and usually the first one a class wants answered. No two routes are alike, so press for the step between wanting to direct and being paid to do it: who gave them the first job, and what they had to show that person.
Which film made you want to direct?
Why ask it
Ask for one film and how old they were, not a list of favorites. The detail to wait for is what they noticed on that viewing that they had never noticed in a film before, which tends to be the first time they saw that somebody had made choices.
What drew you to this script, and why were you the right person to direct it?
Why ask it
The first half gets you the answer that is already in the press notes. The second is harder and better, because a director often takes a film for something they know firsthand, a town, a family, a kind of work, and that is the thread to follow for the rest of the conversation.
How would you describe your directing style, and would your crew agree?
Why ask it
Asked about style alone, many directors describe their films. Bringing in the crew turns it into a question about behavior: how much they talk, how many takes they ask for, what they are like at four in the morning. A laugh before the answer is a good sign.
What does a director do that the audience never sees?
Why ask it
A good one for a class or a general audience, where most people picture the job as calling action. Expect to hear about answering questions all day, from the color of a wall to the length of a pause. Then find out which kind of question they still find hard to answer on the spot.
What are you working on now, and what stage is it at?
Why ask it
A director in prep is thinking about casting and locations, one who has just wrapped is tired and full of stories, and one in the edit is living with what they did not get. Find out which you have caught, and aim your next few questions there.
Where did this film start for you: an image, a line, a person?
Why ask it
Best for a director who also wrote the film. A question about inspiration invites a list, while this one asks for a single starting point: a photograph, an overheard sentence, someone they knew. Then ask whether it survived into the finished film, and where.
How far is the film you made from the film you first pitched?
Why ask it
Films drift between the pitch and the premiere, and the direction of the drift is the interesting part. Ask what fell away first, and whether it went because it was not working or because nobody could pay for it.
Which filmmakers have influenced you most, and what did you take from them?
Why ask it
The names alone are an answer they have given in every interview, so put the weight on the second half. You want something small and specific: a way of ending scenes, a habit of holding a shot, a structure borrowed whole. Filmmakers cheerfully call this stealing, and once they have used the word you can too.
What have you seen recently that you wish you had made?
Why ask it
The favorite-films question, made current. A title from the last year or two gets a real reaction, and the reason they envy it, the nerve of the ending, one performance, how little it cost, hints at what they want to try next.
What is your favorite part of making a film: the writing, the shoot or the edit?
Why ask it
The three ask for different temperaments: long stretches alone, weeks in a crowd, months in a small room with one other person. Few directors like them equally, so ask which one they merely get through and what they have learned to do about it.
What do you think makes a good director?
Why ask it
First answers tend to be words like vision and communication, which fit any job with a team. Have them picture a director they have watched at work, as an assistant or on someone else's set, and say what that person could do that they could not. Now you have a description of a skill.
How did you meet the people in your documentary, and when did you know there was a film in them?
Why ask it
For a documentary director this is the origin question. The interest often comes long before the film does, so ask what happened on the day it turned from curiosity into something they had to shoot, and whether a camera was already running.
Prep
What does your prep look like in the weeks before the first day?
Why ask it
A director's days before a shoot fill up with scouting, casting, the schedule and questions from every department. The details worth getting are what they insist on doing themselves, and what they would do with one more week.
What do you do with a script the first few times you read it?
Why ask it
Some directors read it once straight through and write down only what they felt, then start marking it up on the second pass. What goes in the margins is the thing to find out: beats, questions for the writer, shots, or the scenes they already suspect will be cut.
Do you write your own scripts, and how do you work with a writer when you don't?
Why ask it
Whether they write changes the job: a writer-director can alter a line on the day, while a director on someone else's script has a second person to consult or persuade. Ask whether the writer was welcome on set and in the cutting room. If they always write their own, ask who reads the draft first and is allowed to say it is not ready.
How do you decide what a film should look like before anything is shot?
Why ask it
Answers often begin with references: paintings, photographs, other films, a color removed from the palette altogether. Find out what they showed the production designer and the cinematographer first, and what they ruled out as well as what they chose.
How much of a scene do you plan in advance, and how much do you find on the day?
Why ask it
Directors range from storyboarding every shot to arriving with nothing on paper, and both kinds make good films. Once you know which they are, ask about a scene where the plan was thrown out on the day and what replaced it.
What do you and your cinematographer settle before the shoot, and what do you leave to them?
Why ask it
You are after the division of labor, not the list of films they watched together. Three things pin it down: who picks the lens, who decides when the camera moves, and who has the last word on the light.
Did you shoot on film or digital, and what did that choice rule out?
Why ask it
A format question turns dull unless it is about consequences. Film stock limits how long a take can run and how many of them the budget allows, and a small digital camera fits into rooms and cars a larger one cannot. The second half of the question is the one to wait for.
How did you find the main location, and what did it change in the script?
Why ask it
Locations rewrite scenes. A staircase, a window or a low ceiling decides where people can stand, and directors tend to remember the one place that made them restage everything. For a film built on a stage, ask what they asked the production designer for first.
How did the film get financed, and how long did that take?
Why ask it
Financing works differently from country to country and from one size of film to the next, with public funds, private investors, pre-sales and streaming services all possible sources. Leave the figures alone. The story is in what had to be in place before anyone would commit, and how many times it fell apart.
How did the budget change the film, for better as well as worse?
Why ask it
Asking for the upside heads off the standard complaint about money. A night scene moved to daylight, a crowd cut to three people, one location used twice: ask for a choice the budget forced that they would keep even with more to spend.
How do you choose the heads of department you work with?
Why ask it
Many directors keep the same cinematographer, designer and editor from film to film, and others change on purpose. With either kind, find out what a new collaborator has to do in a first meeting to get the job. It tells you what the director knows they cannot do alone.
How did you get access to the people and places in the documentary?
Why ask it
Access can take a documentary director longer than the shoot itself. Ask who said no first, what changed their mind, and whether the yes came with conditions about what could be filmed or shown.
How did you earn the trust of the people you filmed before the camera came out?
Why ask it
Some directors spend weeks visiting with no equipment, and others film from the first day so the camera becomes part of the furniture. Whichever it was, ask when they could tell a person had stopped performing for the lens.
What did you put on paper for funders before you knew how the story would end?
Why ask it
A fiction director can hand over a script, while a documentary often has to be described before its ending has happened. Find out what the treatment promised, and how much of that the finished film kept.
How did you decide whether your own voice would be in the documentary?
Why ask it
Narration, questions heard from behind the camera, the director on screen, or no trace of them at all: each one tells the audience something different about who is telling the story. Ask whether they cut a version the other way before settling.
Actors
How do you get the best performance out of an actor?
Why ask it
The standard reply is that every actor is different, which is true and tells you nothing. Pick one actor from the film by name and ask what that person needed before a take, whether it was talk, silence or a joke, and how long it took the director to find out.
What are you looking for in an audition that is not on the page?
Why ask it
One habit to ask about is the note given in the room: the director asks for a change and watches whether the second reading is different, which tests how the actor takes direction more than how they read. A good follow-up is whether they have ever cast against their own first idea of the part.
How do you rehearse, and what do you deliberately not rehearse?
Why ask it
Some directors rehearse for weeks and others avoid it to keep the first take alive. The deliberate omission is the interesting half. Fights and stunts have to be worked out in advance for safety, so what gets held back is usually emotional: a confession, a reunion, the first time two characters meet.
How do you talk to an actor who is giving you something that is not working?
Why ask it
Listen for the difference between a result and an adjustment: 'be angrier' is a result and hard to play, while 'you have already decided to leave' is something an actor can do. Ask for a note they gave that turned a scene around, in the words they used.
What do you do when an actor asks something about the character that you have not thought about?
Why ask it
An actor spends weeks on one part while the director has every part to think about, so it is no surprise when this comes up. You learn whether they say they do not know and work it out together, or make something up on the spot. Ask for a time the actor's answer was better than theirs.
How much do you let actors change the lines?
Why ask it
It depends partly on who wrote the script. A writer-director may guard every word or treat the page as a starting point, and a director hired onto someone else's script may not be free to choose. Ask for a line in the finished film that nobody wrote down beforehand.
How do you direct someone who has never acted before?
Why ask it
Common answers are practical: give them a real task to do, leave the abstractions out, sometimes do not tell them what happens next in the scene. Children and people playing a version of themselves are separate cases, so ask which the director has worked with and what went differently.
How do you look after an actor through a scene that is emotionally hard to play?
Why ask it
Practical answers include shooting that actor's close-up first, clearing the set of anyone not needed and keeping the number of takes down. You also learn whether the director is thinking about the person after the camera cuts or only about the take.
What do you do when two actors in a scene need opposite things from you?
Why ask it
The usual case is one actor who is best on the first take and another who gets there on the ninth, and no schedule solves that. Listen for whose close-up they shoot first and whose they let go stale. Whether the two actors knew is a fair thing to ask.
On set
What does a shooting day look like for you, from arriving to wrap?
Why ask it
The outline will sound familiar: a rehearsal to block the scene, a wait while it is lit, shooting, moving on. The difference between directors is where they spend the waiting, with the actors, at the monitor or alone with the shot list.
How do you decide where to put the camera in a scene you have never staged before?
Why ask it
Listen for whose point of view the camera takes and why. A director who starts from the scene, who it belongs to and what the audience should know before the characters do, will get to lenses in the end. If the answer starts with equipment, ask again about one particular scene.
How much coverage do you shoot, and has that changed over your career?
Why ask it
Coverage is the set of extra angles on a scene beyond the main one, shot so there are choices in the edit. A lot of it leaves decisions for the cutting room, and very little means they were made on set. If the amount has changed, ask which film changed it.
How do you know when a take is the one, with the whole crew waiting on you?
Why ask it
The call has to be made in seconds and in public. Some directors watch the monitor, some stand by the camera and watch the actor's face, and some look to one trusted person, often the script supervisor or the cinematographer. Ask who that person is and what passes between them.
How do you keep the tone consistent when the scenes are shot out of order?
Why ask it
There are practical answers to this: fixed rules for the camera, playing an earlier scene back before a take, a script supervisor tracking where each character is emotionally. If the answer is instinct, ask about a scene that came out pitched wrong and how they found out.
What do you rely on your first assistant director for?
Why ask it
On most sets the first AD runs the floor and the schedule so the director can watch the scene, though the job differs a little from country to country. Ask what the AD tells them that nobody else will, such as that the day is lost or that the crew needs a break.
What do you do on a day when the light is going and you still have three shots?
Why ask it
This is the question about pressure, put as a situation they will recognize. The answer shows their triage: what they cut, what they fold into a single move, and whether they tell the crew how bad it is.
How do you get your vision of the film across to the whole crew?
Why ask it
A director cannot explain the film to every person on a crew one by one, so something has to carry it: a book of reference images, a screening of another film, a sentence everyone can repeat. Ask what theirs was on the last film, and whether the crew could have quoted it.
How do you settle a disagreement with an actor or a head of department in the middle of a shooting day?
Why ask it
Creative differences is the polite name for this, and the clock makes it worse. Some directors shoot it both ways and decide in the edit, some take the argument off the floor, and some simply decide. The telling follow-up is the last time the other person turned out to be right.
How do you keep people safe when a scene involves stunts, vehicles, water or weapons?
Why ask it
A fair question for any director and an essential one if you are hiring. The rules, and who is responsible under them, differ by country and by production, so ask how it worked on their last set: who briefed the crew, and who had the authority to stop a take. Be wary of an answer that leaves all of it to someone else.
What was the worst day of the shoot, and how did you get through it?
Why ask it
You will get a concrete story with weather, money or a broken schedule in it. Ask what was given up to finish the day, a shot, a scene or a location, and whether the gap can be seen in the finished film.
What kind of atmosphere do you want on set, and what do you do to get it?
Why ask it
A quiet set, a loud one, music between setups, no phones: these are choices, and directors who make them can explain why. If you are told the mood just happens, ask who on the crew sets it for them, because someone does.
When did you keep filming a moment someone might have wanted private, and when did you put the camera down?
Why ask it
Most directors of observational documentaries have a line, and it is seldom written anywhere. Ask for one occasion on each side of it, and whether the person involved had a say afterwards in what was used.
How do you run an on-camera interview when you already know the sentence you need?
Why ask it
Interview-led documentaries depend on full sentences the editor can use without the question. Listen for how the director gets one without feeding the line: asking again an hour later, sitting in the silence, or coming at it from another side.
What happened while the camera was off that you wish you had caught?
Why ask it
Nearly every documentary has a missed moment, and how it was covered is a craft story in itself. It may have been retold in an interview, carried by sound alone, shown in a photograph, or left out altogether.
Edit and after
What is it like watching the first assembly?
Why ask it
The first assembly is every scene at full length in script order, and plenty of directors call watching it one of the worst days of the job. What they do the next morning differs: some stay away for a week and some start cutting at once.
What did you discover in the edit that changed what the film was about?
Why ask it
Ask for one specific discovery. The general observation that the edit is a rewrite is a stock line in the trade, while a named scene that moved or vanished tells you how they actually work.
How do you and your editor work: are you in the room every day, or do you stay away and come back?
Why ask it
Both habits have their defenders. A director who sits in every day keeps hold of each cut, and one who leaves gets to see a scene as an audience will, without remembering how hard the shot was to get. Ask which scene the editor fought for and won.
Is there a scene you cut that you still think about?
Why ask it
Most directors can name one straight away, and often it was hard to get. Ask why it went: it slowed the film, it belonged to a subplot that was dropped, or an early audience turned against a character in it. The reason tells you what the film became.
How do you tell a composer what you want when you have to describe music in words?
Why ask it
Unless they read music, a director has to get there by feeling, reference or gesture. Ask whether they cut the film to temporary music first, and how hard that was to give up when the real score arrived.
Is there a moment in the film where the sound is doing more than the picture?
Why ask it
Directors are asked about sound far less than about images, and many are glad of the chance. The clearest examples are things heard and never shown: a door in another room, a crowd outside, a silence where the audience expects music.
How do you handle a note from a producer or a studio that you think is wrong?
Why ask it
The interesting part is tactics: which battles they concede early, when they shoot an alternative version, when they refuse outright. Then ask about a note they fought at the time and later came round to.
What changed after you first showed the film to people who had nothing to do with it?
Why ask it
It might have been a test screening, a festival or six friends on a sofa. A laugh in the wrong place or a stretch where the room goes restless is information no editor can supply, and a director will often remember the exact minute. Find out what they changed and what they refused to.
How did you know the film was finished?
Why ask it
Often the honest answer is a deadline: a festival date, a delivery date, the money running out. If that is what you get, ask what they would still change, and whether they can sit through the film now without waiting for that moment.
What do you want someone to be feeling as the credits start?
Why ask it
This is the workable version of asking what the film means. Many directors resist interpreting their own work but will name a feeling they were aiming at, and from there you can get to the decision in the final scene that was made to produce it.
What do audiences keep seeing in this film that you never intended?
Why ask it
Only answerable once the film has screened a few times, so it works best at a festival or on a later press round. Ask whether the reading annoys them or whether they have started to agree with it.
How much footage did you shoot for the documentary, and how did you find the story in it?
Why ask it
A documentary is usually shot at a far higher ratio than a scripted film, so its structure gets built in the cutting room. Skip past the number of hours and ask what they did first: transcripts, cards on a wall, or an assembly of the scenes they could not lose.
What did you leave out of the documentary because it was accurate but unfair?
Why ask it
A true moment can mislead once it sits next to the wrong scene. Ask for something they pulled for that reason, and who in the cutting room argued for keeping it.
Did the people in the documentary see it before the public did?
Why ask it
Practice differs from one director to the next, and sometimes a broadcaster or a release form settles it, so ask how it worked on this film. What the screening was like, and whether anything changed after it, says a good deal about what the director thinks they owe the people they filmed.
Are you still in touch with the people you filmed?
Why ask it
A cast moves on to other parts, while the people in a documentary go on living the life the film showed. An audience at a documentary Q&A nearly always wants to know how they are now, so you will be asking on behalf of the room.
Career
What did you get wrong on your first film that you now know how to do?
Why ask it
Push for the particular thing, a scene they could not make work, a day they lost, a person they handled badly, and then for how they do it now. It is one of the few questions where a student gets a mistake and its fix in the same answer.
Which of your films are you proudest of, and is it the one people know you for?
Why ask it
They are often two different films, and the gap between them is the story: the one that was hardest to get made, or the one hardly anyone saw. If they will not choose, ask which they would show to someone who had never seen their work.
What is the hardest part of being a director that nobody warned you about?
Why ask it
Expect something outside the filmmaking: the waiting between films, raising money, saying no to people they like, being the one everybody asks. For a class it may be the most useful thing a working director can tell them. Ask whether knowing earlier would have changed anything.
What would you tell someone about to direct their first feature?
Why ask it
Naming the first feature narrows it to things a person can act on: how many shooting days to fight for, which job not to do yourself, who to hire first. If the advice stays general, ask what they would have that person do in the last week before the shoot.
Did you go to film school, and would you tell someone to go now?
Why ask it
Expect a split answer, because what the school gave them and what it cost are separate matters, and fees differ enormously from one country to the next. Pin down what they got there that they could not have got by making shorts with friends: usually people, equipment or deadlines.
What should someone make first if they have no money and no contacts?
Why ask it
A good answer names a length, a number of locations and somewhere to show the result. If the reply is only to pick up a camera and start, ask what they would shoot this weekend with a phone and two friends.
Can someone make a living from directing alone, and how long did it take you?
Why ask it
It depends on the country, the kind of work and the year, so ask what was true for them. Many directors have made commercials, directed television or taught between features. Leave the figures out, and ask which of those jobs taught them something they used later.
How do you choose what to make next?
Why ask it
Some directors keep a drawer of scripts and some wait to be sent one, and the gap between films can be long for reasons unrelated to ideas. How many projects they carry at once, and how they decide one is dead, says a lot about how the career actually runs.
Is there a film you have wanted to make for years and have not been able to?
Why ask it
Plenty of directors have an unmade one, stuck on rights, money or a part nobody would agree to play. Ask what is stopping it and what would have to change. Some will not give the title, and that is fine.
How has the technology changed the way you work since you started?
Why ask it
Keep it to their own sets and cutting rooms and away from the state of the industry. Digital cameras, playback on set, remote editing and, more recently, AI tools have each changed some habit or other. The best part of the answer is often what they still do the old way on purpose.
How do you take a bad review, or a film that did not find its audience?
Why ask it
Only for a director with a few films behind them, and never about the film they are promoting today. People who have been through it can be frank about how long it took to work again and what they stopped reading. Let them choose which film to talk about.
What did making this film cost you personally?
Why ask it
Ask it late, quietly, and only if the conversation has earned it. Long shoots and months of post-production mean time away from home, and press interviews seldom go near that. Accept a short answer and move on.
What do you wish interviewers would ask you?
Why ask it
Save it for the end. The reply is often a subject more than a question: the sound, a supporting actor, a film of theirs that nobody saw. Whatever they name, ask about it.
Interviewing a film director
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Before you meet
Say what it is for and how long you need
Tell them whether this is for a class, a podcast or print, and ask before you record. A director promoting a film may have twenty minutes for you, so mark the three questions you most want answered and ask those first.
Watch one film twice and pick two scenes
A second viewing shows you the choices: where the camera is, how long a take runs, what is left offscreen. Two scenes you can describe precisely will carry a whole interview.
Find out who else was on it
Knowing the cinematographer, editor and composer by name lets you ask about specific working relationships. Many directors talk more freely about their collaborators than about themselves.
Learn enough vocabulary to keep up
Coverage, blocking, eyeline, plate, day for night, first assembly. You do not need to use them, but you need to recognize them when the answer arrives full of them.
Which questions for which occasion
A Q&A after a screening
You get one question, in front of a room that has just watched the film. Ask about a single scene everyone will remember, keep it to one sentence, and do not preface it with your own reading of the film. The questions under Edit and after suit that room best.
A class assignment or student interview
Start with the Openers and Career groups, where the answers need no technical background, then add two from the group closest to the job you want yourself. Six questions with follow-ups are plenty for a short interview.
A profile, podcast or long interview
Go through the film in the order it was made: prep, actors, the set, the edit. The order helps the director remember, and each answer gives you a detail to bring back in a later question.
Interviewing a documentary director
Twelve of the questions are about nonfiction: how the director got access, what they promised funders before the story had an ending, where they stopped filming, and what the people in the film saw before release. They sit at the end of the Openers, Prep, On set and Edit and after groups. Most of the Actors group will not apply, though the question about directing someone who has never acted before carries over well.
Meeting a director about a job
A producer or client choosing a director wants different evidence: how they prepare, how they treat a crew, how they keep a set safe and what they do when the day falls behind. The Prep and On set groups cover that. Ask for examples from a finished project, then watch the project.
During the conversation
Anchor everything to a scene
Ask how they shot a particular moment rather than how they approach shooting. The specific question gets a lens, a decision and an argument on set; the general one gets a philosophy.
Ask what went wrong that day
Problems produce the best answers in filmmaking: weather, an actor unavailable, a location lost the night before. The solutions are where the craft becomes visible.
Follow the department
When they mention the editor, the production designer or the sound mixer, ask what that person changed. It moves the interview away from the myth of the single author.
What to avoid
Do not open with influences
The list of favorite directors is likely to be the most rehearsed answer they have. Ask once the conversation has warmed up, and ask what they took from those films, not only whom they admire.
Do not pitch
Slipping your own project into the conversation ends the useful part of it. If you want to ask about your film, ask for that separately and say so.
Do not ask them to explain the meaning
Many directors will not interpret their own work, and pressing gets you a deflection. Ask what they were trying to do practically in a scene and let the meaning follow.