5 Directing Lessons from Ryan Coogler and Maggie Gyllenhaal

Ryan Coogler and Maggie Gyllenhaal became directors by taking very different paths.

He played college football, went to film school, and made Fruitvale Station before he was 30.

She spent decades in front of the camera (Secretary , The Dark Knight , The Deuce) before stepping behind it with The Lost Daughter.

Now Coogler has the Oscar-nominated Sinners , and Gyllenhaal has her buzzy upcoming release in The Bride. The two of them sat down recently on the In Proximity podcast to talk through what they've learned.

Enjoy their conversation below.

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"For me [writing is] like an hourglass."

This came up when Gyllenhaal and Coogler compared notes on how they write, and Coogler visualizes the process as an hourglass shape.

He described letting her process stay loose and unconscious for a long time, following instincts, not forcing structure. Then the outline snaps everything into place. After that, the writing and editing open things back up.

“[It’s] unconscious, and then the moment of the outline is where it gets tight, right?” Coogler said. “And then writing the script, making and editing, and it widens out again.”

It's a useful mental model because it gives you permission to not know what you're doing yet.

A lot of developing filmmakers feel like they should have it figured out earlier than they do. The hourglass frame says the wide, exploratory, unclear phase isn't a problem. It's just part of the process.

"Each actor needs to be spoken to in a completely different way. And you don't know what it is until you meet them."

Gyllenhaal said this while reflecting on what she learned making The Lost Daughter , and it's one of the most honest things you'll hear a director say about the job.

You can come in with all the tools, all the ideas about how to communicate, but none of it matters until you figure out who you're actually dealing with and how you can communicate with them.

Coogler compared it to being multilingual, which his wife and producing partner is. But it’s not just with language, it’s with people.

On a big cast, you're holding 10 or 15 different emotional frequencies at once, trying to figure out who needs space, who needs specificity, who needs you to talk to them like you'd talk to yourself. That last one, Gyllenhaal said, is how she works with Jesse Buckley.

Buckley takes in the "trippy" notes, the abstract, almost unconscious direction, and runs with it. Other actors would look at you like you'd lost your mind, and Gyllenhaal said Olivia Coleman didn’t resonate with that type of instruction at all.

Don't find one communication style and apply it to everyone. Being a director is being a people person and developing the interpersonal skills necessary to manage different personalities.

Gyllenhaal added, "One thing I know, having been the person who's not ultimately the one in power, is just how valuable freedom is—to feel heard and to feel seen."

Gyllenhaal spent most of her career on the other side of the camera, and that experience shapes much of how she directs.

She knows from the inside what it feels like to be managed versus trusted, to be talked at versus listened to, to be given notes versus given room. And she's pretty clear that the best directors she worked with treated her like a collaborator with something to contribute, not just a body to be placed in the right spot.

Learn more about how to talk to actors.

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"Just see what the actor has first. And then receive that, react to that, and then maybe we talk about it."

Coogler said he learned this the hard way on Fruitvale Station , working with Octavia Spencer on one of the film's most devastating scenes. He worked through it with her, talked about it, kept pushing, but it wasn't landing.

Spencer finally asked to just try it on her own. He stepped outside, watched on the monitor... and it was perfect. He said he realized right then he'd wasted time by over-directing before she'd even had a chance to show him what she had.

It's a lesson about restraint that many beginning directors resist. You've lived with this material, and you have strong ideas about how every moment should play, and it's hard to let go of that.

But great actors show up with their own preparation, their own interior life built around the role. If you're talking before they've had a chance to work, you might be filling space that's already been handled.

Dive into more about how to stop over-directing.

"Get in, get out. Unless you get in and they grab you."

The Octavia Spencer lesson is about what happens before you give a note. See what the actor has first.

This one is about what happens when you do have something to say. Be brief, be specific, and leave. Coogler describes it as stepping in, delivering what you need to deliver, and stepping back out before you've overstayed your welcome. You don’t want to distract, and you don’t want to take up valuable time.

Sometimes you step in, and the conversation opens up. The actor might pull you deeper into the work, and now you're collaborating in real time. But it’s about efficiency, especially on set. If you aren’t vibing on something, it might warrant a bigger sidebar, but you don’t want to hold up production.

You're there to give the actor what they need and get out of the way so they can do their job. Knowing the difference between a moment that calls for a quick note and one that calls for a longer conversation is its own skill, and it develops the same way everything else does. By paying attention on set.

Here’s how to create a character journey as a writer/director.

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"Something bubbles up, usually that's valuable."

Coogler brought up his football background and said he could tell within the first few plays whether he was going to have a good game, and that early on, his instinct was to fight through it when the rhythm felt off instead of acknowledging it.

It took time to learn that naming the feeling was more useful than grinding past it. He carries that into filmmaking. He reads the energy of a day on set and responds to it honestly instead of just pushing forward.

Gyllenhaal knows the feeling from acting first, and also extends it to directing.

"If the rhythm is off, that can be the opportunity," she said. "If you just let that be the case for something even more exciting and alive and interesting to happen—if you stop for a second and go, 'Something is happening here, what is it?' Something bubbles up, usually that's valuable."

Being out of rhythm isn't just something to manage, in other words. It's potentially something to use. A day that feels off on set isn't automatically a day that's going wrong. Sure, it might be that you do need a break, they say. You don’t have to force it if things feel off. But simply acknowledging the bump can free everyone on set to try something new.