The London-based director of Netflix’s ’Scoop’ turns to his kids and The New Yorker for viewing recommendations.
My kids are pretty good for recommendations. I’m always interested in what they’re watching. They’re in their 20s and have a great filter. Suddenly you’ll see them clustered around an iPad and you’ll realise something interesting is going on. Baby Reindeer would be their most recent recommendation — it was amazing.
I’m not very good at doing two things at the same time, so I like to try to clear a space for watching TV and watch films at the cinema as much as I can. I can remember some years ago I had a TV show going out that we were watching at home with my kids, and they were following it on Twitter, which was a new experience — there were these different levels you can appreciate something, to see a live reaction, even if you’re in your house.
The Kiln in Kilburn [north London] is a great cinema near me, and there is a brilliant Everyman near St John’s Wood. I love the Curzon in Mayfair — that’s the most delicious cinema that you could go to. If you want to get lost in an experience and feel cocooned in a world, that’s one of the most special places. Challengers is the last film I saw at the cinema. I thought Zendaya’s tennis was way better than the guys. She had the ballet of it.
I love The New Yorker, the film reviews there are always great; they have a reflective quality to them. I find The New Yorker stands between a European version of filmmaking and an American version, and somehow speaks to both worlds.
We had a good WhatsApp group from the Scoop cutting room about what’s worth watching — the editor Kristina Hetherington, myself and the assistants. We keep in touch on all that sort of stuff.
When I’m working on something, I tend to shut down and not to watch anything. I find films can be like a reflecting hall of mirrors, where a film becomes a function of other influences on it. You try to find your own visual path. When you get out the other end, you find yourself wanting to splurge on things and fill your brain with new images, stories and ideas.
For some strange reason, I really like watching [long-running UK docuseries] Traffic Cops. I don’t drive, I have no interest in cars, but I find there’s something very compulsive about it, and there are so many iterations of it. It’s always a three-act structure: a set-up, a conflict and a resolution. It’s fun and very relaxing.
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