“Nomadland” has been earning accolades and Oscar buzz, both for the performance of star Frances McDormand and for the film’s director, Chloé Zhao.
Zhao called in to SiriusXM’s “The Jess Cagle Show” this week, to promote “Nomadland” and tease her upcoming debut in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, “The Eternals”, featuring an all-star cast — including Angelina Jolie, Salma Hayek, Kit Harrington and more — as powerful immortal beings tasked with protecting the Earth from interstellar threats.
As co-host Julia Cunningham pointed out, Zhao was working on post-production for “The Eternals” at the same time she was editing “Nomadland”, and wondered if and how one project affected the other.
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“I was so lucky with the two teams I worked with and, and it felt, I just, I feel very fortunate,” said Zhao.
Asked by host Jess Cagle whether she has any favourites when it comes to characters in “The Eternals”, Zhao offered a response.
“It’s like asking me to pick which babies…. [laughs] Well, I do think, this is so boring you are going to roll your eyes, but I think Marvel, I think this film is very, I think they took a big risk with this one. I think they’re going to surprise you. I hope so.”
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According to Zhao, Marvel “did give me a lot of creative freedom,” but emphasized that the project was a team effort.
“It’s a hard one to talk about because I don’t want to just be like, I is me, me, me, my vision is really, really a teamwork,” she explained. “It takes a village to raise a little film baby.”
She also talked about using a combination of special effects and on-location filming, utilizing wide-angle lenses to result in visuals “that will feel and look differently. And I love also being, we shot mostly on location, but I love being on the stage, learning about the technology. Cause I grew up with manga. I always imagined I want to be a manga artist. So for me, I always imagined stuff that doesn’t exist.”
