In a conference room at Toronto’s Fairmont Royal York hotel, Joe Wright is buzzing. The previous evening, he witnessed the Toronto International Film Festival People’s Choice runner-up Emilia Pérez in all of its glory.
“I just sat there in wonder going, ‘Oh, this is what it’s all about,’” he said, running his fingers through his hair. The British filmmaker – in Toronto to support the North American premiere of his latest work, the Italian miniseries M: Son of the Century – has been a deep admirer of French filmmaker Jacques Audiard and his work since 1996’s A Self-Made Hero. He wouldn’t have dared miss his first chance to see the film.
“There’s this profound love of humanity to [Audiard’s] work and social responsibility that––” he pauses. “I’m welling up thinking about it.”
Perhaps what inspires Wright the most is Audiard’s age. The French stalwart turned 72 in April of this year. Less than a month later, Emilia Pérez won him his first Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. “I’m glad he’s 20 years older than me,” he slyly jokes, exuding his oddly comforting brand of unbothered British charm. “I feel like I could get on my knees and worship.”
When asked if he still plans to work at that age, he is quick with an assured answer. “Fuck yeah. What else am I going to do?”
If M: Son of the Century is any indication, the director shows no signs of slowing down. In a stark departure from his romantic works (Cyrano, Anna Karenina, et. al), Wright has set his period lens on the rise of Benito Mussolini, Italy’s infamous Prime Minister who became the primary force behind the country’s fascist takeover. Based on the best-selling historical novel by Antonio Scurati, the British-Italian co-production marks Wright’s first project entirely not in the English language and his first serialized work since 2003.
“With this piece of work,” Wright explains, “I’ve broken through a sort of creative ceiling. The subject matter allowed me to create an aesthetic that I’d been building toward for some time…a kind of cinematic Brechtian aesthetic.” The series, evoking a wide range of filmmakers from Fritz Lang to Stanley Kubrick to Martin Scorsese, feels enormous in scale but laser sharp in focus, giving Mussolini’s relatively unknown story a sense of cinematic grandeur that is Wright’s bread and butter. “It’s reached somewhere now that I’m really excited to build upon.”
However, Son of the Century reaches new territory for Wright in its palpable urgency. With Italy now under the control of right-wing leader Giorgia Meloni and the Brothers of Italy party, Wright’s reflection of the country’s origins feels all-too-familiar. “The Italians have never dealt with the trauma of their fascist past,” he explains. “After the war, they just brushed it all under the carpet. There were no Nuremberg Trials. There was no truth and reconciliation…which is why we’re seeing such a strong rise of the far right again in Italy now.
“We’re even discussing a theatrical release in Italy,” he comments. “I really hope that happens, especially in Italy.”
Joe Wright spoke to Geek Vibes Nation about what a potential theatrical release would look like, along with his experience working on M: Son of the Century, in this exclusive interview, which has been edited for length and clarity.

This year marks the 19th anniversary of your directorial debut, Pride & Prejudice.
Really?
Yes.
Oh my god!
Which means that we are slowly approaching the 20 year benchmark of your filmmaking career.
Far out!
Your career has noticeably grown from stories that are very sentimental and romantic, like Pride & Prejudice, to material that is much more fierce, such as Darkest Hour and now M. Son of the Century. When you look back on the beginning of your career and compare it to now, do you see a similar progression in terms of the material?
Yes, I do. I think my social/moral indignation has grown and developed over the years. I find that I’m fiercer now than I was back then. I’m probably less self-centered as well, as a human being. With M, it was very exciting to make a piece of work that was about something far more important than myself and to put my craft at the service of something bigger than itself. I’m a devotee of my craft. That has always been my higher power, if you’d like, and has always humbled me. The perfection of the craft is always just out of our reach. But to put that craft to the service of something that feels far more important is kind of liberating.
However, the work is also becoming more and more personal, in a kind of paradoxical way. Examining Mussolini and fascism – which I consider to be the externalization, the politicization of toxic masculinity – required me to examine my own masculinity and the very worst elements that exist within me, as I think they do within probably all people and, in particular, within men. It became so intensely personal that the exploration is at the service of something bigger than me. I’ve always believed that to achieve something universal, it has to be incredibly specific, that if you ever try and make something universal it just becomes wishy-washy and doesn’t really ring true.
Is that why so much of your work has been historical, because you thrive in capturing a specific period with all the design and detail that comes with it?
Yeah, but I also find that making period work is liberating because I can create a distance that allows me a clearer view upon my own experience as a human being. It’s almost like a fairy tale. I don’t consider them to be period pieces, really, I consider them to be fairy tales and somehow fairy tales metaphorically express something far greater than reality. Trying to replicate reality doesn’t particularly interest me.
So, no present day work is in your future?
Well, I am doing a present-day piece right now. [chuckles] So, I’m interested in doing present-day work, but that’s probably why I’ve done so many period pieces. They allow me a greater freedom. However, when working on period pieces, I’m researching the period for those specific details that illuminate our experience and make them as human as possible. For example, when researching Pride & Prejudice, I asked the question, “Where do they all go to the toilet?” They hadn’t invented the flushing toilet yet. So, in the late 1700s, if you had a ball, where did they all go to the loo? You would have 200 or 300 guests and the parties would go on for six or seven hours, into the early hours of the morning. Where did they go to the toilet?
[laughs]
What I discovered was that the women would all take laxatives throughout the day. They would flush themselves out as much as possible so that they wouldn’t have to go to the toilet because if they did, they’d have to leave the party. That was the end of the night. It seemed like such a perfect human detail. And yes, of course, the context of the Enlightenment and Napoleon being over there and all these things played into Pride & Prejudice. But what I’m particularly fascinated by are those human specifics.
There is such a propulsive pace in the show. From its very first moments, there is a real movement and force to your filmmaking. Talk to me about working with your creative team on creating that tone. What were you trying to tap into?
The energy of the times. I studied a lot about Futurism. [Filippo Tommaso] Marinetti is the leading light in the Futurist movement and he appears in the show, but that being the artistic movement at the time was very useful because it expressed the energy of the foundations of fascism. This manic momentum that was borne out of the first mechanized war, the first World War, and how machines were changing the world. Obviously, the Industrial Revolution had happened quite a long time before that, but that sense of kinetic energy and movement informed the aesthetic of the whole piece.
What I really wanted was to have the audience feel like they were living through these times. I realized very early on that if I used period music for the score, it would all feel rather old-fashioned. The Chemical Brothers’ techno gives the audience the sensation of being there. It helps the audience understand the energy of the time and it brings us closer to a greater understanding of their situation. There was always this sense of almost a violent momentum.
Speaking of The Chemical Brothers, had any of their work been done prior to the shooting? Were you using it on set?
I was using that on set. I was also able to play Chemical’s back catalog at the same time Tom [Rowlands, half of The Chemical Brothers] was writing and sending me music. I’ll generally always ask my composer for an initial theme. I said to Tom, “Okay, what I need is a theme for the violence of locomotion.” He sent me a piece of music as well as the stems so my editor and I could cut the music to the image. But I’m also playing that on set to give all of the actors and supporting artists a sense of the energy of the scene. It creates a really great atmosphere. After a 12-hour shooting day, sometimes you need to crank up a track to make sure that everyone keeps their energy going.
Going back to the paradoxical distance you spoke about before, I’m curious if the Italian played a role in that as well. If I’m not mistaken, this is the first thing you’ve worked on that is entirely not in the English language.
Yeah.
Was that the decision from the beginning?
No. Originally, the idea was that the dialogue between characters would be Italian and that when he addressed the camera, the dialogue would be in English.
Very interesting.
Then, during pre-production, [Giorgia] Meloni’s far-right government won the election [in Italy]. The very next day, which also happened to be Luca’s [Marinelli] birthday, I came in and understood very clearly that every single Italian needed to be able to understand every single word of what was being said. So, we made all of the dialogue Italian.
But you’re not fluent in Italian.
I don’t speak much Italian, no. [laughs]
Yet you did have to direct in Italian?
Yeah. It was a fascinating and very illuminating process for me because I realized that you can tell if someone is giving a truthful performance simply by the tone of their voice, their eyes, their rhythms, and their physical actions, which was kind of amazing. I’m not sure the casting process would’ve worked if I didn’t speak English and was directing British actors because British actors are less expressive and very text-based. American actors are very psychoanalytically-based, should we say. So much of “the method” is about self-analysis, whereas the Italian actors are coming from a tradition of commedia dell’arte.
A lot of the greatest Italian actors come from Naples where the whole city is a theater. They’re very performative, they’re very physical. Everything has a gesture to match the word. I’m very good at understanding Italian physical gestures. You get a sense of it almost like sign language, really, which I love. There’s a kind of musicality to the voice, as well, that one can very quickly and easily understand. I thought, “If Danny Boyle can direct Slumdog Millionaire,” where so much of that movie was in Hindi, “then I can do it with Italian.” That gave me a bit more confidence.
Were there any Italian filmmakers that were on your mind while working on this?
All of them. For me, Italians are the gods, even the American Italians. [Luchino] Visconti is a kind of god to me. [Pier Paolo] Pasolini, [Federico] Fellini, [Vittorio] De Sica—all of them. I’m a fan of the modern Italian directors as well—[Paolo] Sorrentino and [Matteo] Garrone and so on. In a way, to be amongst them, walking the same stages as they shot on and working with people who had worked with them as well, felt like an enormous privilege and responsibility. Apart from our DP, my camera operator, and my first AD, everyone was Italian.
Your star, Luca, has worked with a number of these Italian gods as well. Talk to me about the value of working with him on this remarkable transformation.
The transformation is remarkable given that there’s no prosthetics. It’s not like Gary [Oldman] playing [Winston] Churchill. It was an act of pure imagination, and imagination that is so powerful that it can make the audience’s imagination imagine the same thing that he is. I find that to be incredibly impressive. I think he’s the greatest actor of his generation in the world. Every day I was in awe of what he was capable of. I’d push him further and further to see where the limits were, and there were no limits to what he was capable of doing. On top of which, he’s the sweetest human being on the planet. The guy never once lost his cool over 127 days. Never once lost his sense of humor, never once came in and gave anything other than 110%.
Was he a leader on set for a lot of the other Italian actors?
Yeah. One of the great things about casting in Italy is that when I’m casting in the UK or America, I have a sense of context with every actor I meet. I go, “Okay, well, I know so-and-so, they’ve done this, they’ve worked with them,” whereas with the Italian actors, I had no context. I had no idea whether this actor I was meeting was a big star or whether they were straight out of drama school. It was really lovely and refreshing to be able to meet people and find them solely in terms of my experience.
I’m curious if you have a take on the unique experience of bringing longform, episodic work to film festivals. What was it like to present this work in a theatrical format and in larger chunks than it would likely be experienced on streaming?
The experience of bringing the piece to Venice was extraordinary. We screened the first half of the series, about three and a half hours, in one evening. Then, we screened the second half, another three and a half hours, on the second evening. That was incredibly powerful. M was really made for the big screen, but I don’t really see the difference between television and film, other than the sound mix. If you want a bigger screen at home, you just sit closer to the TV. But the surround sound is the big difference. To have that kind of experience with The Chemical Brothers score and the detail we put into the sound work makes a huge difference. The response was kind of shocking, really.
Why?
Because the Italians have never dealt with the trauma of their fascist past. After the war, they just brushed it all under the carpet. There were no Nuremberg Trials. There was no truth and reconciliation. There were just a few intercommunity retributions, but they never truly looked at it. Everyone just carried on as if it hadn’t happened, which is why we’re seeing such a strong rise of the far right again in Italy now. It was an incredibly cathartic experience in the way the Italian press took up the story – the review was on the front page of la Repubblica [a widely circulated Italian newspaper] – but it was also an extremely cathartic experience for the nation and, in particular, for the audience. I’ve never experienced a reaction like it. It was intensely gratifying. We’re even discussing a theatrical release in Italy.
Oh wow! In the Venice form?
In the Venice form. We’re also discussing a theatrical release in the UK. I would love a theatrical release in the States, at least, though likely a very limited one, obviously.
That would be unprecedented.
Yeah, that would be amazing. We also had a second screening in Venice where people watched the first half in the morning, had lunch, and then watched the second half in the afternoon. It happens all the time in the theater nowadays, such as with [Sir Tom] Stoppard’s Leopoldstadt, and I think there’s possibly a place for it in the cinema, too. I really hope that happens, especially in Italy.
M: Son of the Century helds its North American Premiere as part of the Primetime section of the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. It is currently without a North American release date.

Larry Fried is a filmmaker, writer, and podcaster based in New Jersey. He is the host and creator of the podcast “My Favorite Movie is…,” a podcast dedicated to helping filmmakers make somebody’s next favorite movie. He is also the Visual Content Manager for Special Olympics New Jersey, an organization dedicated to competition and training opportunities for athletes with intellectual disabilities across the Garden State.