The Film That Lit My Fuse: ‘The Glorias’ Director & ‘Lion King’ Musical Creator Julie Taymor

The Film That Lit My Fuse is a Deadline video series that aims to provide an antidote to headlines about industry uncertainty by swinging the conversation back to the creative ambitions, formative influences, and inspirations of some of today’s great screen artists.

Every installment asks the same five questions. Today’s subject is Julie Taymor, the multi-talented film and theatre director. Taymor is perhaps best known for her globally successful stage adaptation of The Lion King in 1997, while she also directed the Oscar-winning Frida Kahlo biographical drama Frida in 2002. Taymor’s latest feature, The Glorias, stars Julianne Moore as feminist icon Gloria Steinem. It debuted at Sundance last year, but skipped cinemas because of the pandemic and instead premiered on Amazon last September. Sky has taken the UK rights.

In The Film That Lit My Fuse, Taymor says Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon is the film that helped her “understand the power of perspective,” while she credits her time in Asia, watching bunraku puppet theatre, with helping provide inspiration for her staging of The Lion King. She also offers a persuasive argument for the power of cinema.

Check out the video above.