Five years ago, filmmaker Gina Prince-Bythewood broke Hollywood ground when she directed “The Old Guard” for Netflix, becoming the first Black woman to direct a big-budget film adapted from a comic book or graphic novel. Serving as a producer, she passes the baton to Victoria Mahoney for “The Old Guard 2,” the next installment in the film series inspired by the graphic novels of the same name by Greg Rucka, who also wrote both screenplays, and Leandro Fernández. The series stars Charlize Theron, who also produced both films, as Andy, also known as Andromache of Scythia, an immortal thousands of years old who runs a band of mercenaries made up of other immortals: Joe (Marwan Kenzari), Nicky (Luca Marinelli), and Booker (Matthias Schoenaerts).
In the first film, the group are joined by the newly immortal Nile Freeman (KiKi Layne), a U.S. Marine killed in Afghanistan, just as the group’s work comes under threat from a Big Pharma bro (Harry Melling) who wants to mine their regenerative powers to create a miracle cure. The film ended with a cliffhanger in which it is revealed that Andy’s oldest friend, and sometime lover, Quynh (Veronica Ngo), who had been convicted of witchcraft and spent the last 500 years inside an iron maiden under the sea, was alive and out for revenge. It’s here that the story picks up in Mahoney’s film, as the crew, aided by their old friend, the mortal Copley (Chiwetel Ejiofor), and new ally Tuah (Henry Golding), contend with the wrath of Quynh and a mysterious immortal known as Discord (Uma Thurman).
Mahoney is perhaps best known for her work in television, where the versatile and prolific filmmaker has directing credits on over a dozen different series, including “Queen Sugar,” “You,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” “The Morning Show,” “I Am The Night,” “Lovecraft Country,” “Claws,” and the pilot episode of “Suits LA.” Before turning to filmmaking, Mahoney studied fine art and later acting, studying under the great Shelley Winters. After appearing in some off-off-Broadway productions, she moved to L.A., where her acting work on television and in independent films paid her bills. At the same time, she developed the screenplay that became her feature film directorial debut, “Yelling To The Sky.”
Over the course of several years, Mahoney refined the script for “Yelling To The Sky” through various filmmaker labs, including the Sundance Labs’ screenwriting and directing programs. The high school-set drama, which stars Zoë Kravitz and Gabourey Sidibe and was shot on luminous 35mm by Reed Morano, made its world premiere at the 61st Berlin International Film Festival, where it competed for the Golden Bear. It went on to screen at festivals around the world, including the Deauville Film Festival and SXSW. Along with her work on television, Mahoney became the first woman to direct a film in the “Star Wars” franchise when she was hired as the second unit director for J. J. Abrams’ “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.”
For this month’s Female Filmmakers in Focus column, RogerEbert.com spoke to Mahoney over Zoom about her 12-year career journey between feature films, the importance of having a community of peers, and the joy of having her filmmaking dreams finally come true.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Obviously, “Yelling To the Sky” is a feature film you developed for many years through Sundance Labs and various other filmmaker labs. After debuting at the Berlin Film Festival in 2011, you’ve had a notable trajectory, working on numerous TV series and filming second unit for “Star Wars.” I would love to hear what you’ve taken from this journey between these feature films and how it has shaped you as a storyteller.
It’s interesting because each job presents its own riddle and each job presents its own lesson, and you don’t know what the riddle is, and you don’t know what the lesson is. I could read a script, and think, “Oh, yeah, I know what the riddle of this will be and how we’re going to solve it.” And then, you know, you get underneath, and you start to excavate, and you get into the nitty gritty and the architecture of it, and you realize, oh, it’s a different riddle. And whether or not that riddle is friendly or unfriendly in the way that you have to deconstruct, the process could be with ease, or it could be just a riddle that doesn’t want to be deconstructed. So I find that exciting no matter what.
The only thread that runs through all the jobs, I would say, is that I am hell bent on creating challenges that push me further as a storyteller, and I’m hell bent on carving and shaping my path. So, most of the jobs, including the TV ones you mentioned, I chose different genres on purpose so that people couldn’t say she only does drama or that she only does that. Also, it’s important to note that I was trying to get a feature film made that entire time. People like me weren’t hired in that stretch. So, in that stretch of trying to get a feature film from a studio, I was working through TV, starting with Ava DuVernay, who gave me my first TV job on “Queen Sugar,” and then I took off.
For each genre that I chose, I sometimes forfeited work and income because I wanted to hold out for something else. That experience now allows me to transition between film and TV. At the same time, some people in the TV industry may not hire them to do a movie. Then the people in film, sometimes the people in TV, don’t want to hire them because they think they’re going to be too slow. But now I can jump back and forth in a way that is valuable and that was willful and designed on purpose. Then you take that into genres as well. I do all the different genres because they present different challenges, and because I have set forth for myself a refusal to be stopped. I refuse to let anyone dictate what I can and cannot do.
I thought your episodes of “I Am the Night” were the best episodes of that series.
That was my art geek background. I came up through art school. I studied fine art in school, not film. Business and fine art. Those episodes were all my art-geeky background. I told Patty Jenkins… I was like, “I’m telling you, I’m the perfect person, because of my art background.” When I said to her, I want to make humans, but then do cubism, she let me in. Thank goodness. I had a great deal of fun with that series. Helping design the costumes, bringing craft people on board. I loved Chris Pine’s face when he first walked on the set, because I wouldn’t let him see anything. So when he walked in, that’s when I called action. So that was his real reaction.
You mentioned Ava DuVernay, but you’re also taking the mantle on this sequel to “The Old Guard” from Gina Prince-Bythewood, who is another titan in Hollywood. I know that part of their mission in life is to create a great pathway for talented women like yourself. I’d love to hear your thoughts on that community, but also in working through their legacy, working on “Queen Sugar,” working on the second film in a franchise that Gina so beautifully launched. How do you feel about that as an artist? And about the progress that is slowly happening in Hollywood?
I’m not sure if there’s an openness, and quite frankly, I couldn’t tell you if things have changed. I don’t know. I know that I’m fighting the good fight, and I’m going to go down to my death fighting the good fight. Things happen all the time that aren’t equal to those of my peers. I spend so much of my life saying to people, “Hey, just treat me like you treat the guys. Don’t make me smaller. Just go about your day, however you treat the guys. That’s how you interact with me.”
What’s tricky about the entire industry is that before I enter spaces, there’s some preconception about what I’m capable of, whether I can hold a sentence or talk and walk at the same time, as if it’s a foregone conclusion. You could tell when you talk with people that they’ve made a decision on your IQ and your EQ. Then, I’m exhausted, because I have to wait for them to catch up to me, instead of just starting at the place that we’re both at, and starting at the place that all my peers are at, starting at the place that I’ve earned to be at.
Regarding Ava and Gina, what I’m grateful for is that we walk together, unlike Kathryn Bigelow, who was by herself all those years. Kathryn Bigelow, the beast of action to this day, who made one of the greatest action movies ever made, that everyone steals from, everyone steals from. With many women directors, including Kathryn, Patty Jenkins, and me, there’s a ten-year gap between the first and second film, at the minimum. For me, it was twelve years. What’s tricky is that I feel a great sense of appreciation we have for each other, and we can call each other and say, “Oh my god, guess what happened to me today?” and they can say, “Yeah, me too.” Kathryn is a warrior, and she doesn’t need sympathy or pity from anyone. So that’s not what we’re talking about. But I am very aware that for so much of her career, she wasn’t able to call someone and say, “Guess what? Crazy shit happened at my job today, and you won’t believe it,” and then have someone say, “Me too,” and then talk it through and let it go, drop it off at midnight and show up the next day with joy and clarity and warmth and eagerness to just face your day and do your job without all the other shit that comes with it.
I live for the day when I’m not made to feel different. I live for the day when I can just talk about lenses and shots. I mean from the beginning, from the first day on set until its release, that every step of the way, there is just a regard for the job and the labor that’s done. But I do feel a tenderness for Ava and Gina. And Gina, by way of this particular film, which builds on what she did in the first one, there were groundbreaking components. I’m pretty sure Gina was the first Black woman to adapt a graphic novel. What she did with it, in the way that she brought heart and soul and guts to it, was just something, I mean, something. Like that scene with Joe and Nikki in the van. I mean, I’ve yet to see anything touch that.
This film takes place all over the globe, and you’ve done many projects all over the globe. I wondered if there is one location or moment that you’ll never forget from this production?
I’m going to blow your mind. We shot the whole film in Rome.
That architecture and all those places that you know. I saw it when we scouted, and I drove [production designer] Paki Meduri crazy, begging him to go further and push the boundaries. I begged him to never, ever show me one location that we had seen previously in films that we know and love well. So we went to the ends of the earth. So that house, the Gaudí structure, that’s in Rome. The house that we pretend is in Korea? That’s in Rome. What we said was Croatia, that’s on Lake Como.
I dreamed of making a movie like this. First of all, just to make a studio film. This is my first studio film. So, thank you for honoring that and what it means, as well as how long I had dreamed of this while making the film. Every single moment, no matter how challenging, I would hear myself say, “I dreamed of this my whole life.” So, in sincerity as a true geek, I can tell you every inch, minute, and mile of that movie is something to me. Every scene is a battle cry on every field and every sequence, and I’m so proud of everyone and how we came together to achieve what we achieved at the given time, the given tools, and given circumstances. So I’m not copping out when I tell you that every inch of this film means something to me, and always will, because it’s my first studio film.