Alex Garland is behind some fantastic and acclaimed genre projects such as “Ex Machina,” his tech-thriller FX series “DEVS,” and the recent project “Men” starring Jessie Buckley and Rory Kinnear. He originally made the jump from author to screenwriter and then made another pivot to directing but doesn’t see himself as a director and might not be doing it for much longer.
“I’m not really a film director, I’m a writer who directs out of convenience,” Garland candidly said in a new interview with The New York Times. Garland alluded to a potential retirement from directing after he completes his current film, “Civil War,” starring Oscar-nominee Kirsten Dunst (“Power of The Dog“), after which he wants to go back to strictly writing.
READ MORE: ‘Civil War’: Alex Garland & A24 Team For Near-Future Action Epic Starring Kirsten Dunst
“I’m tired of feeling like a fraud,” the filmmaker shockingly revealed to The New York Times. “I’ve got so many other reasons to feel like a fraud, I don’t need to add to it in a structural way with my job.”
“But I have been thinking that after the film I’m directing at the moment, I should stop and go back to just writing. That might be part of the reversing away from the world — it’s time to get away from it, I think. I’m not temperamentally suited to being a film director.”
The director pointed out there were 48 hours between the end of the shoot for “Men” and the start of “Civil War,” a near-future action film for A24 Films, which would indicate burnout might be part of Garland’s issues.
“It would be more honest, probably, to say I don’t particularly enjoy it. It’s something I have to force myself to do. It’s incredibly sociable, because you are with a large group of people the whole time — and, in my case, having to do a lot of role play. At the end of the day, you feel a bit fraudulent and exhausted.”
Hopefully, Garland simply needs a break after shooting two films back-to-back and doesn’t completely retire as we’ll be losing a great voice in genre filmmaking. His exhaustion is certainly justified.
Garland’s latest movie “Men” is set to be released in theaters on May 20 and you can read The Playlist’s review here.