Chloé Zhao, our guest on this episode of The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast, is a Chinese writer, director, producer and film editor who has just five features films to her name — 2015’s Songs My Brothers Taught Me, 2017’s The Rider, 2020’s Nomadland, 2021’s Eternals and 2025’s Hamnet — but has, through them, become one of the most admired filmmakers of her generation.
Only the second woman and first woman of color to win the best director Oscar — for Nomadland, which also brought her the best picture Oscar — she is now nominated for the best director and best adapted screenplay Oscars for Hamnet, which is also nominated for best picture, actress (Jessie Buckley), casting, costume design, original score and production design.
Over the course of a conversation at the LA offices of The Hollywood Reporter, the 43-year-old reflected on her path to America and to filmmaking, and her particular attraction to the American west; why, early in her career, she so frequently cast in her films people who had never acted before, and how she worked with them versus with established stars like those she has cast more in more recent films; and what happened after she made Nomadland, a $5 million indie, and Eternals, a $236 million Marvel movie, back-to-back, that prompted her to step away from filmmaking for four years, and almost to pass on Hamnet.
She also discussed why she ultimately took a leap of faith and agreed to make Hamnet; the unconventional directing techniques that she employed on the film’s set; and what she has made of responses to the film, from rave reviews to winning the Toronto International Film Festival’s audience award to a potentially game-changing endorsement from film legend Jane Fonda at the recent Palm Springs International Film Festival’s awards gala.
Chloé Zhao on the set of Hamnet
Agata Grzybowska/Focus Features