Interview: Talking ‘The Creator’ with Filmmaker Gareth Edwards and How He Made The Biggest Indie Film Possible

Gareth Edwards has an incredibly unique filmmaking perspective. Regardless of what he’s doing, he’s trying to do the tactile and grounded version. With Monsters, it was a limited budget helping to fuel the vision. With both Godzilla and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, it was taking his more independent viewpoint and lending elements to a blockbuster. Now, with The Creator, Edwards has been able to merge the two in the way I think he always intended. The results are rather impressive. Yesterday, I shared my conversation with the film’s cinematographers, Greig Fraser and Oren Soffer (here). Now, it’s Edwards’ turn.

My review of The Creator (here), has the following to say about Edwards and his filmmaking:

Filmmaker Gareth Edwards, co-writing here with Chris Weitz, treats this closer to his work with Monsters than with Godzilla or Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. I mean that in terms of the guerrilla style nature of the work. Edwards has some incredible talent behind the camera, with Greig Fraser sharing co-cinematographer duties with Oren Soffer, while the editing triumvirate is Hank Corwin, Scott Morris, and Joe Walker. Throw in a score by Hans Zimmer and everyone below the line is doing terrific work. Fraser and Soffer especially help Edwards to take your breath away. His direction is vibrant and mostly well paced. If there’s a flaw, it’s in the final act, which feels a bit rushed, compared to everything else. For a film that feels so unique up until that, Edwards and Weitz get a little bit standard issue as things wrap up. It’s not a huge issue, but it felt noticeable.

Below, you can hear my chat with Edwards. We didn’t have a ton of time, but I wanted to praise him/pick his brain about the indie filmmaking style he brought to the table. He was clearly touched, but also at an interesting moment, as we did this conversation right on the cusp of the movie hitting theaters. It’s out now, so judge for yourself, but The Creator is something to behold, visually, and Edwards deserves credit for executing this vision.

Here now is my interview with The Creator co-writer/director Gareth Edwards. Enjoy:

The Creator is in theaters now!