The Big Picture

Alex Garland’s latest film, Civil War, explores the harsh realities of a divided nation in the midst of a violent conflict.
Garland clarifies recent rumors about his directing future, emphasizing his focus on screenwriting and collaborations with fellow filmmakers.
Through editing and feedback from industry professionals, Garland emphasizes the importance of creating a compelling and impactful film.

Alex Garland is an auteur whose filmography often explores the worst-case scenario of numerous social issues with films like Ex Machina (2015) and Annihilation (2018). In his latest with A24, Civil War takes audiences into the rapid fire of a nation divided by a violent “Second American Civil War.” Starring Kirsten Dunst (Melancholia), Wagner Moura (Narcos), Priscilla’s Cailee Spaeny, and Nick Offerman (Parks and Recreation), audiences make the dangerous journey to the White House with a team of wartime journalists determined to make it to the White House before rebel forces reach the president first.

Throughout his career, which began as a novelist with books that would go on to inspire films like The Beach, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Garland has penned the screenplays for notable feature films since the early 2000s, including the iconic zombie movie 28 Days Later and sci-fi horror Sunshine, both directed by Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire), and starring Oscar-winner Cillian Murphy. Recently, however, The Guardian reported that Civil War would be the writer-director’s final foray into directing, which naturally stirred up some commotion online. Especially considering Civil War has received such positive praise, with Collider’s Matt Donato calling it “Garland’s best film yet,” currently sitting at 92% on Rotten Tomatoes.

In this interview with Steve Weintraub, Garland addresses his previous statements and sets the record straight, clarifying to fans what this means for his future in Hollywood. Check out the full conversation in the video above, or in the transcript below, to find out what we can expect from Garland going forward, his full-circle moment with Boyle with the 28 Days Later sequel, and how he managed a critic-approved anti-war film through the lenses of journalists and real-life experiences.

Civil War The film follows events in the U.S. during a civil war. Government forces attack civilians. Journalists are shot in the Capitol.Release Date April 12, 2024 Director Alex Garland Main Genre Drama Writers Alex Garland

Read Our ‘Civil War’ Review

COLLIDER: Do you enjoy the speed dating of talking to, like, a million journalists in one day?

ALEX GARLAND: Not the speed dating, no, because I then start thinking, “How do I reduce this into the right format, and also be accurate and fair?” It’s easier if it’s a more relaxed, extended chat, for sure.

Yeah, I’m on the same page with you.

No, Alex Garland Isn’t Retiring
“There’s other roles one can do.”

I have a million questions for you, but I have to start with the most important, which is, you know I’m a big fan of your work, and I read that you’re not going to direct anymore–

GARLAND: I never said that. I think this is from a piece in The Guardian, right?

It was all over the place.

GARLAND: But it was from an interview in The Guardian, and in an interview in The Guardian, I said, “I’m not going to direct for the foreseeable future.” That’s really not the same as retiring. How that statement leads to the way it’s being presented is, I think, part of the weirdness of existence at the moment, and how words and meanings of words get drifted away and some other kind of response or meaning floats in. What I said was I’m not going to direct for the foreseeable future, which is true. I work as a screenwriter. I’m writing for Danny Boyle. I’m trying to help, and certainly going to do everything I can to work with this guy, Ray Mendoza, who I worked with on Civil War. Filmmaking does not only include directing. There’s other roles one can do. One of them is screenwriting, and I am a screenwriter, so I’m doing that.

First of all, I love your screenwriting, and I knew you were going to be doing that. But asically you’re saying to your fans that at some point down the road, you will probably make another movie.

GARLAND: No, it’s an open-ended question. What I’m doing at the moment is, I’ve worked in film for a long time in different capacities, including as a screenwriter for other directors, and right now there’s a director who’s an old colleague of mine, Danny Boyle, who I’m working on a project with. That’s a big job that requires a lot of thought and effort and work. Plus a film where I’m working with a guy called Ray Mendoza to tell his story, and to work with him to make a film, really, from his perspective and with his agenda, and that’s my job at the moment. So, I’m doing my job. It doesn’t have any grandiose statements attached to it. I didn’t mean it in a grandiose way, and I’m not actually, I hope, a very grandiose person. I’m just doing my job.

Related ‘28 Days Later’ Sequel in the Works With Danny Boyle and Alex Garland ‘28 Years Later’ will be the third installment in the zombie franchise, following 2007’s ‘28 Weeks Later’.

I totally understand. So, we’ve talked about this, and you know I’m fascinated by the editing process, because no matter what you’ve done on set, no matter what you’ve written, that is the final place it all comes together.

GARLAND: True.

With Civil War, how did the film possibly change in the editing room in ways you didn’t expect going in?

GARLAND: In my experience, it always changes in the editing room. I think that — maybe this is me talking as a writer, because I think fundamentally that is what I am, a writer — editing is not just the final part of writing. It is, in a sense, the bit of filmmaking, the thing you see on the screen. You’ve got a stack of stuff; there’ll be dialogue, performance, production, design, music, sound design, everything, the imagery, all of it. That’s the bit that comes together in the edit. The shoot, in a funny way, which I think often looks from the outside like the filmmaking, is in a way getting the raw material together for the edit. It’s creating the jigsaw pieces that you will be slotting together. A jigsaw is not the pieces, it’s the pieces put together. So, it’s something like that. It’s more complicated, but also it isn’t.

Image via SXSW

I’m always so curious, who did you show the film to early, like friends and family, that gave you feedback? How did their reaction possibly change the film or not change the film?

GARLAND: I think possibly because of the way I conceptualize filmmaking, and actually the role of a director as being part of a group of people making a film, you show it to people often within the group. So, always in post-production, there’s visual effects supervisors and editors and composers who are all reacting to the film in its cuts as you go I’d also include. Then I’d bring people in who aren’t normally in post-production, like the DOP, for example, the colorist, the grader, acer you work with on every film, Glenn [Freemantle], the sound designer. I really want to know what they think.

Then, as well as that, sometimes old colleagues or friends. I worked with Danny Boyle a lot at the beginning of my filmmaking life. Again, we’re just about to do it again. I showed it to Danny and said, “Any thoughts?” Because he’s a super experienced director and he has an insight that, in many ways, will be better than my own, if only because I’m too close to the trees, but also just anyway. So, yes, that’s what I do. And then I listen carefully, because I lose objectivity and I’m working on instinct a lot of the time. You think something lands in a certain way, but then you find it doesn’t, and it’s complicated, but it’s that.

‘Civil War’ Uses Lived Experiences as Inspiration for Anti-War Message

You have some really intense action in this, but what is the secret to making it a war movie that’s an anti-war movie?

GARLAND: I’m not sure I know the secret, but we certainly attempted to make an anti-war movie. It’s a lot of stuff. It’s how music is used, how something is framed. Actually, how it’s cut is a huge, huge part of that, but it’s also in the presentation and the choreography of the action itself. And so, it depends where you’re drawing your grammar from. Film has a grammar of combat that is developed in complicated ways over the years, and what we did was our grammar was largely taken from things like news footage or documentaries or lived experience. So, amongst the filmmakers, a very good example was the guy I’m about to work with again, Ray Mendoza, who is a veteran and was given a lot of autonomy in terms of how some things were put together. The realism will come partly from people like Ray.

Yeah, he did a great job.

GARLAND: He really did.

Civil War is in theaters April 12.

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