Get the latest gossip

‘Sunlight’ Filmmaker Nina Conti on How Getting Cast in Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s Han Solo Film Helped Her Directorial Debut

‘Sunlight’ filmmaker Nina Conti talks about how getting cast in — and then cut out of — Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s Han Solo led to her directorial debut.

The feature directorial debut of actress and comedian Nina Conti, “Sunlight,” reimagines Monkey, one of the characters she performs in her ventriloquist act, as the human-sized alter ego of a woman on the run from a toxic relationship. Collaborating on the script with Allen, with whom she maintains the improvisational podcast “Richard & Greta,” Conti realized that wearing the full-sized suit allowed her to tap into deeper emotions than the rhythms of the quirky rom-com her premise superficially suggests. Characterizing the finished film as “a little bit like ‘Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid’ or ‘Thelma and Louise’,” Conti suggests that the experience of watching it mirrors the process of making it more closely than she originally expected.

Get the Android app