Alex Garland Clarifies Retirement Remarks: ‘The Statement I Made Is So Different from the Way It’s Been Interpreted’

Ryan Lattanzio
·2 min read
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Alex Garland‘s words in a recent Guardian profile got twisted around over the weekend, with many outlets reporting that the “Civil War” writer/director is retiring from filmmaking. Garland, whose “Civil War” opens April 12, told The Guardian “nothing’s changed” when asked about previous statements saying he’d step back from making films. “I’m in a very similar state. I’m not planning to direct again in the foreseeable future,” while saying he’d continue to work as a screenwriter.

Speaking with IndieWire, Garland sounded off on his remarks becoming “extrapolated” in the press and suggesting he is retiring from filmmaking altogether, and stressed that his comments have nothing to do with his feelings about how “Civil War,” the most expensive in-house production ever from A24, played out.

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“What I said is I’m going to take a break from directing for the foreseeable future. How that could get extrapolated as what pride I do or do not feel in this movie. I just don’t see the connecting thread,” he said. “I said I’m going to stop directing for the foreseeable future. Why would a statement like that be taken and picked over or interpreted to that degree? There’s something weird happening there. There’s something strange about that … it’s a general strangeness that exists to do with what form public statements take, how they are used, and how words are interpreted or read.”

Garland, a screenwriter first by trade with films like “The Beach” and “28 Days Later,” made his directorial debut with “Ex Machina” before the films “Annihilation” and “Men.” “Civil War” centers on Kirsten Dunst as a war photographer making her way from New York to D.C. in a politically divided and treacherous America.

“Just to go back to the statement, I said: I’m going to take a break from directing or I’m going to stop directing for the foreseeable future. That is such an uncontentious thing to say,” Garland said. “I also said what I’m going to do is screenwriting. Screenwriting is filmmaking. You can’t erase screenwriters or DOPs or editors or actors from the process of screenwriting. Filmmaking is not the preserve solely of directors.”

Garland said that “part of me is incredulous” over how his words got interpreted, adding, “I think there is something weird happening in the world. This is like a grain of sand of that weirdness. But the statement I made is so different from the way it’s been interpreted. That is just odd. And so part of me is just reacting to that.”

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