Moonlight Director Barry Jenkins Hopes His Film Pulls People Out of Their Comfort Zones

"The work I did was not engineered towards breaking down some barriers."

Robyn BeckGetty Images

It's hard to overstate the beauty of Moonlight. Drenched in rich, tropical colors and achingly honest about life in crack-ridden Miami, the film has rendered audiences speechless and, quite often, in tears. The $5 million film, shot over 25 days and starring three actors as the protagonist at different stages of life, quickly outgrew its indie roots. To date, the film has grossed over $13 million, a number sure to rise with its Best Picture win at the Golden Globes last night. (That it was released shortly before election day only added to the film's lore: Box office sales spiked on November 9, as audiences sought out its message of humanity and healing.)

If director Barry Jenkins does take home a certain gold statue for Moonlight next month, he will be the first black director to do so in history. But his eyes flash a warning when you so much as mention this fact—not so much because he's afraid you'll jinx it, but because, as you'll learn within five minutes of meeting him, awards are so very beside the point of his work.

He knows that those who love the film do so because it's unique and unexpected.

You know, it used to be that watching a film was a very special occasion, the same way flying was. Before, if you took a flight from New York to L.A., most of the windows would be open. Now we get on planes and we just close them because we're so used to what it feels like. I think the same thing has happened with cinema. We've gotten so used to certain story forms. I think our movie is formally and structurally unorthodox. And I think it's why people's reactions have been so genuine, because the movie that we gave them is not more of the same. I guess it's more of us in a certain way. But people don't know who the fuck we are, so that's a unique thing.

Telling a different story about the black male experience was essential. Moonlight works because its actors made themselves vulnerable, too.

What I love about that is just based on the media that we receive—the film, the television, the music videos, whatever—in all these representations of young black men, we rarely see that they have the capacity to not be able to look someone in the eyes out of vulnerability and sensitivity. These are things that absolutely exist in the world, but we see them so rarely in arts and letters that they inherently take on this added sort of feeling that is at once intellectual and also extremely emotional because the actors give such true performances.

I think Trevante, Ashton, and Alex all understood who the character was and how that was a fundamental element of the characters' psyche: this idea of wanting to be touched, but being so afraid to be touched. Wanting to be loved but so afraid of being loved. And not speaking that duality but performing that duality. It was a quality we were looking for and then again, trying not to be manipulative about it. I wasn't going, "And now, right here, don't make eye contact." The only one that I remember asking about it in a very overt way was Ashton, who plays Chiron in the second story. I think what he said to me was, "Man, am I not looking at him enough?" But I was like, "No, no, no. You're doing just right." He goes, "Yeah, cause it feels good for me, like, as a person, but I don't know if it's too much for the character." I was like, "This is why you are here."

Barry Jenkins on the set of
A24/David Bornfriend

Pairing first-time actors with more experienced vets created an authentic back-and-forth between members of the cast.

One of my favorite filmmakers is Lynne Ramsay. She's a Scottish filmmaker. We Need to Talk About Kevin is her most recent film. She always mixes actors and non-actors. But in all her work, she likes to create this tension on the set. Not like an antagonistic tension, but we have these two very different modes of working within a scene. And so it's like Mahershala and Naomie and all these non-actors, including Janelle. And you just see it's bringing these things out of her. Mahershala doesn't know how they're going to react because they don't know. They're not trained.

An impending storm rushed the gorgeous swimming lesson scene, but it heightened the shoot's authenticity.

Improvising is the wrong word [for it]. I'd say ad-lib or freeform. But because it's water, typically you'd get a tank and put up a green screen backdrop up, and you can really control how many waves there are, where the sun is, this and that. You know, we couldn't afford to do that. We had to go to the ocean. And so yeah, I was anticipating that to some degree that I was going to have to be open to the elements. I just didn't anticipate that a storm was going to come in. So had a very fine window with which to do it. And so that scene was about this character Juan teaching Little how to survive, how to be self-sustainable, and so I knew Alex Hibbert didn't know how to swim. And so my plan for that day was we're going to be actually in the ocean, and a little boy is going to actually learn how to swim and between those two elements, the meaning of the scene for me is going to be captured. Everything else the dialogue, you know, we can finesse that.


The small budget wasn't a hindrance. Instead, it allowed Jenkins to push himself to his limits.

I mean, everything. It was, like, a 25-day shoot. We could only have Naomi efor three days. There were no pickups. There were no cover sets, so we had to do a scene and it was raining, it just had to become rain. But no, it was a beautiful experience. There wasn't ever a version where something wasn't going to work. It was like, Oh, that thing isn't going to work. Let's figure out something that does. And you kind of get through it. And the beauty of that is when you're working that way, there's not an expectation or an anticipation of you and I having this conversation, you know, four months later when our movie's in release, it's made $11 million offset such budget, nominated for this or that. No, it's, "How can we best utilize the time that we have, you know, to do service to the script that we're all here to support?"

He feels in good company with this year's crop of Oscar hopefuls.

I've seen so many of these films this year. La La Land is an amazing film. Manchester by the Sea, amazing film. Jackie, I think, amazing film. They're all very valid choices. And so there's no reason that any of us should clean up. I think the best version is all of us sharing all these many things. I think there's a very superficial read of La La Land that does injustice to what Damien's doing in the film, and it's convenient because these are tough times to make a superficial read of that film. But it's like, no, this is America. This is what this shit is. You gain something; you sacrifice something else in the gaining of that thing. I mean, that's dark stuff.

The work I did was not engineered towards breaking down some barriers. But also, the barrier is not mine to break down.

He doesn't feel pressure to be possibly the first black director to win an Oscar.

We can't safely assume anything. We shouldn't, we won't, and we can't. It's not because no black director has ever been worthy of being nominated for Best Director. That's just not the case. The same way Kathryn [Bigelow] is the first woman to win Best Director. She's certainly not the first woman to merit that distinction.

What it would mean for me is very different from what it would mean for the Academy or what it would mean for this and that. The work I did was not engineered towards breaking down some barriers. But also, the barrier is not mine to break down. The barrier belongs to the Academy. That's all I'll say about that. I don't like to talk about that stuff at all—because it has nothing to do with the film. We made the film a year ago, and whether I'm nominated, the movie's nominated, Mahershala is nominated, whether we're nominated and we win or lose, it's not going to fundamentally change the film. I'll feel that way, whether we win, whether we're nominated, whether we're not. And I kind of have to. Because if I don't, I'm allowing these outside things to take possession of my thing, you know? Which is not acceptable.


His next project is an adaptation of Colson Whitehead's National Book Award-winning novel, The Underground Railroad.

Once this all set and done, we'll get into it. I'm super excited about it. I pre-ordered it off of Amazon and read it right away. As I was finishing it, someone called me, Hey have you heard about this? I'm like, Yes, I finished it. Yes, yes, yes. We sent Colson the idea. He loved it, and now we're off. That's going to be a limited series, not a feature film, so I'm still trying to figure out what the next film looks like for me. It's interesting, because I went eight years between my first film and this film, and it didn't feel like eight years. It kind of just happened that way.

He's also making a film about Olympic boxer Clarissa Shields.

I'm a huge sports fan, which people who follow me on Twitter are maybe starting to figure out because I'm tweeting about my fantasy team a lot now. Clarissa's story was a documentary I saw back in the spring called T-Rex. It's so good. Here's why it's a Barry Jenkins joint, as a writer. It's not a sports movie at all. It's a movie about a poor, impoverished, black young girl in Flint, Michigan, who decides to take up boxing. It's such an American story — fundamentally American story. And it's true. She overcomes and succeeds. It's amazing. I'm actually not even a big boxing fan, but I'm a big Clarissa Shields fan. So, I thought, Oh, I have to find a way to be involved in this. And once Moonlight started to happen, it became more realistic that I could be involved in telling her story.

Actors Trevante Rhodes and Naomie Harris, director Barry Jenkins, actors Ashton Sanders, Janelle Monae, and Mahershala Ali pose in the press room during the 74th Annual Golden Globe Awards.
Kevin WinterGetty Images

He has also adapted James Baldwin's novel, If Beale Street Could Talk.

This was actually the same trip I wrote Moonlight. Beale Street I wrote in Berlin. Moonlight I wrote in Belgium. I wrote it without the rights because again, in some ways, it was a reaction to putting so much energy in the commercial company. No matter how much you convince yourself, that kind of work purely about making money. I said, Well, I'm going to just do exactly what I want to do. I love this book. I love this play. I'm going to write those things, and I'll fucking figure it out after. Yeah, I mean, here it is three years later. I still don't have the rights to the book, as I shouldn't. Mr. Baldwin's only been adapted once. This would only be the second time. It's a big deal. It's a big responsibility. But because of the success of Moonlight in the marketplace, the estate has seen the film. And I think in that film they can see my intentions with Beale Street, so it's on the horizon. I don't have the rights, but it's on the horizon.

He's not worried about getting too mainstream.

Absolutely not. I can look to Damien. His first film was made from a $30,000 budget. Second film, like a $3-$5 million budget. Now La La Land, a $30 million budget. I still see Damien in all three of those pieces. In particular—he'll tell you—I'm the biggest fan of his first film. And that movie and La La Land are the same voice. Exact same voice. There's nothing in Hollywood that's inherent detrimental to good art. I think that's a fallacy that we've created because we frame the work that way too overtly. This is Hollywood. This isn't Hollywood. It's like No, this is actually all Hollywood. People are just framing them differently.

He's not sure how the next four years will affect American art.

I do think people are going to respond the best way they know how, and that's through channeling their voices into the art, or making sure their voice is in the art. Just like me doing commercials became too convenient to separate your voice from your work. I think now, none of us have that luxury. The voice has to be a part of the work. It has to be. Because we're not sure. Maybe we don't get to make much more.

I saw a joke tweet about trying to find a way to get Mike Pence to watch Moonlight. It was actually a good idea. Even if you only watch the first five minutes, I think that would be enough shock to the system to break him up a little bit.


He hopes Moonlight exposes its audience to a different perspective, even if it pulls them out of their comfort zones.

I definitely think the movie has won more people over than it's lost. This really lovely message came through yesterday. A person who just organizes a film group invited four people to go watch the film. Four went in, and three came out because one person walked out during the beach scene in the second story. And the comment was, She wasn't ready. But the other three had discussed what they had seen. I have no problem with that. Because what normally happens is we're so insulated in our bubbles that we're never exposed to a different opinion, a different perspective. If this movie or any piece of art can get people to the point where they have to acknowledge that an alternate reality and alternate perspective exists, that's productive. Maybe next time they'll get a little bit farther into the film.

The place where I've seen the most dissent is amongst people I feel haven't seen the film. The trailer, the YouTube comments, the Facebook discussion. There are all these amazing arguments that break out amongst people who outright say the film should not exist and people who outright say this film is very necessary. Occasionally those people will come to an agreement—they can even agree to disagree, or I sort of see where you're coming from. I'm always about, What is the most productive version of what I'm putting into the world? Something that can be engaged by all folks. I don't have to change everyone.

My favorite response to this film, so far, is from a friend of mine. This woman's mom is a much older woman, very hyper-religious, conservative Christian, but she loves me. So, my friend has her mom come and watch the film without telling her what it was about. Two months later, this woman took her entire church group in Chicago to go see this film. Shit like that… amazing. More of that. Like that shit to me is just as moving, as meaningful, as the possibility of being the first this or the first that.

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