It’s been a golden age for directors dipping into their childhoods, as films like Belfast, The Hand Of God and Roma have scooped awards and acclaim. As he sat down to write his own self-reflective movie, Armageddon Time, director James Gray deliberately avoided watching them. “I don’t want to be influenced at all,” he says. “I know that Steven Spielberg has made his own [film, The Fabelmans] that’s coming out in the winter. I’m sure that’ll be its own brand of wonderful… but I don’t ever think about what anybody else is doing, maybe to my detriment.”
Now 53, Gray had just come off the Brad Pitt— starring sci-fi epic , which was his biggest in scale and highest-grossing film in a career that previously saw him trade in admired indies like , and . “I was exhausted,” he reveals. “It was Brad on wires… one guy going to Neptune. And I just thought, ‘I’ve got to do something that’s really autobiographical and personal.’” It was time to].”
