Sam Taylor-Johnson on kicking down doors, no matter what

UnStyled

Refinery29's UnStyled

Fashion & Beauty, Arts, Society & Culture

4.8 • 527 Ratings

🗓️ 5 December 2019

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sam Taylor-Johnson is one of just four percent of the Hollywood directors of the top 100 films who are women. Such astonishing odds haven’t stopped her from making films that are often visionary in their exploration of the beauty gleaned from a flawed existence. Her latest, an adaptation of James Frey’s controversial best-selling book A Million Little Pieces, stars her husband and creative partner, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, with whom she also co-wrote the script. Sam joins host Christene Barberich in the studio to talk about life as a working mom, beating cancer twice, and the biggest lessons she learned from 50 Shades of Grey.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Unstyled. I'm your host, Christine Barberick, co-founder and global editor-in-chief of Refinery 29.
0:10.0	Each week, I invite a notable person to come in and talk with us as we explore the funny, inspiring, sometimes heartbreaking tales of life, work, and love, as told through the things that we wear.
0:23.6	Sam Taylor Johnson is on a mission.
0:38.9	Between crafting moving meditations across visual art and film,
0:42.9	beating cancer twice, and being a fiercely dedicated wife and mom,
0:47.5	this British-born force has a knack for beautifully blurring the lines
0:50.8	between our interior and exterior lives.
0:54.0	With the ability to both intimidate and inspire vulnerability in those around her,
0:58.4	that hypnotic 107-minute film of David Beckham sleeping, yeah, that was her.
1:03.7	It's Taylor Johnson's warm yet driven demeanor and sharp eye for emerging talent
1:07.9	that make her a natural storyteller, who can't help but get at the heart of
1:11.6	things. This dance between the personal and the public is a fitting preoccupation for the artist,
1:18.0	namely given Taylor Johnson's experience navigating her own life's duality.
1:22.5	A member of the influential young British artist collective alongside Damien Hurst in the 90s,
1:35.4	Taylor Johnson found success as a visual artist earning a Turner Prize nomination and the Ely Cafe Prize for most promising young artist.
1:37.6	But that didn't quite cut it for her.
1:45.8	After fighting for her life through both colon and breast cancer, while raising two small children, Taylor Johnson set her sights on another mission, directing. While women directors only make up 8% of the U.S. film industry,
1:52.2	this path is proven fulfilling, both personally and professionally, as she ultimately became one of
1:57.4	the highest grossing female directors, with the mega hit 50 Shades of Grey,
2:01.7	and met her now husband on the set of her first full-length movie, the critically acclaimed Nowhere
2:06.7	Boy. Sam and Aaron Taylor Johnson combined their names when they married, a small detail that's
2:13.2	reflective of the uniqueness and strength of the seemingly predestined partnership.
	...

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