g onder Woman
greets us, she jabs a finger in, well,
wonderment towards the glass, on the other
side of which stands Actual Hans Zimmer.
You sense she still can’t believe it. We can’t
believe that she can’t believe it. But it makes
a little more sense when the director confesses,
within seconds of sitting down, that, “I never
thought directing could be like this. I love being
here and I love doing this and I love my job.” She
pauses. “I would have never said I loved my job
in the past. It was always something I was
addicted to that was incredibly unpleasant and
challenging. This is the fi rst time I’m like, ‘Oh
wow, I love it!’”
It’s the start of a fascinating, full-throated,
career-crawling conversation with a fi lmmaker
who, after just two fi lms, has made it onto
Empire’s list of the most infl uential fi lmmakers
of our lifetime. But — as she reminds us — it
wasn’t so long ago that she was living on credit
cards and struggling to get her R-rated movie
about a dog made...
When you say you were addicted to
something “unpleasant and challenging ”,
is there a part of you that feels directing
should be painful?
There was. Particularly starting my career
with Monster, the two things very much went
hand-in-hand. That it would take absolutely
everything and be challenging to the core in
this very soul-shaking way. [But] getting to
make something like this, where it’s huge and
challenging, but delightful in every way, as well.
And you laugh and you’re with your friends!
So have you found joy in it?
A lot of joy. Like, this is what I’m getting to do
today: scoring at Abbey Road with Hans Zimmer
and he’s playing beautiful music and I’m getting
to watch him work.
Let’s go back to Patty in 1984...
From very young, I was into avant-garde comedy
and electronic music and punk rock. I was here
[in the UK] for a while when I was in the fi fth
grade and I remember seeing punk rockers and
I was like, ding, ding, ding!You were also into television comedies like
The Young Ones?
Hugely. When The Young Ones came on, it drew
my attention. So I started watching French
And Saunders and Comic Strip Presents... And
I was watching [American comedians] Carol
Burnett and Bob Newhart, so comedy and
music were my two fi rst loves. Film less so, even
though I did watch a lot of interesting fi lms.Can you remember the fi rst fi lm you saw in
a theatre that really had an impact on you?
Superman. It’s one of the reasons I’m here today,
because I had a profound experience seeing that
movie as a seven-year-old. And it spoke to me and
moved me and inspired me in a very deep way.Why did it inspire you so much?
Not to deep-dive into too personal...but my
father had died a month before that movie
came out. So I just went to go see a superhero
movie. You expect it to be silly or nothing. And
it was so profoundly honest in a way about the
loss of the father, and the boy on his own and
who he became. And I was Superman. So whenClockwise
from above:
Gal Gadot
as Diana
Prince, aka
Wonder
Woman,
in 2017’s
Wonder
Woman;
Taking no
prisoners;
With Captain
Steve Trevor
(Chris Pine);
Patty
Jenkins,
Gadot and
Pine view
the Wonder
Woman
dailies.TYTYTY NSIS ISS iin a cracking mood. You
sense she’salways ina cracking mood, but
especially,particularlytoday.Empiremeets her
in the bowels of Abbey Road Studios in north
London, where she’s scoringWonder W
1984. As she greets
wo d