Sam Taylor-Johnson

To perfectly capture the essence of a subject, director Sam Taylor-Johnson borrows a strategy used by method actors. The British filmmaker and photographer says she enters the character's headspace to better represent their feelings, emotions, and complexities. For this reason, Taylor-Johnson only seeks out projects she can viscerally connect to, which was the case with her new Amy Winehouse biopic, Back to Black. On this week’s episode of Table for Two, Taylor-Johnson sits down for lunch with host Bruce Bozzi and discusses the moment she knew Marisa Abela was the right choice to play Winehouse, the difficulties of navigating the movie industry as a woman, and how her poignant photographic portrait series of Hollywood stars, “Crying Men,” helped her come to terms with her second cancer diagnosis.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.