Photography by Drew Anthony Smith

Martin McDonagh

PLAYWRIGHT AND FILMMAKER

WHAT IS YOUR CALLING CARD?

I guess my cinematic calling card is jet-black comedy and cute dead animals.

NAME AN INFLUENCE OF YOURS THAT MIGHT SURPRISE PEOPLE.

Some weird combination of Vladimir Nabokov, J.D. Salinger, Amtrak trains, and Buster Keaton.

WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU SURPRISED YOURSELF IN YOUR WORK?

I’m always surprised when any of the characters in my films make it to the credits alive, and one day I hope the animals will too.

““Should I, or shouldn’t I, become more of a whore just to try to win an Oscar?””

DESCRIBE A RECENT CROSSROADS AT WHICH YOU FOUND YOURSELF.

Should I, or shouldn’t I, become more of a whore just to try to win an Oscar?

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO SEE MORE OF IN YOUR INDUSTRY? LESS OF?

I’d like to see our more idiosyncratic cinematic voices turn down the Marvel/DC money-trough and make films that they actually like and won’t be ashamed of. I’d like to see fewer film directors taking writing credits on films they’ve barely changed 12 words of. Any time I see a director with a co-writing credit these days, I tend to smell an enormous rat, and it smacks of the same ratty disdain for writers embodied by the Directors Guild when they sold out the Writers Guild during the strike last year.

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