Filmmaker
Valerie Faris is an American film director, along with her husband Jonathan Dayton.
PROFILE
Valerie Faris
Guest
FROM Valerie Faris
The Business
Directors Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris on 'Battle of the Sexes' The new movie Battle of the Sexes tells the story of the famous 1973 tennis match between Billie Jean King and retired men’s champion Bobby Riggs. Emma Stone plays King at 29 as she leads the fight for better pay for women tennis players -- who at the time made only a fraction of what male players did. Steve Carell plays 55-year-old Riggs, a compulsive gambler always in search of an angle. Battle of the Sexes is not only about the competition; it portrays another, very personal struggle for King, who was married at the time but began a relationship with her hairdresser Marilyn Barnett, played by Andrea Riseborough. The directors of Battle of the Sexes are Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, a married couple who also directed Little Miss Sunshine’ in 2006 and Ruby Sparks in 2012. With only those two other movies in their filmography, Dayton and Faris are extremely selective about their projects. But they were immediately drawn to the story of Billie Jean King, and they weren’t the only ones. They tell us why they think so many people were interested in making a "battle of the sexes" movie now, and why their project won out. They also talk about breaking into the industry by directing music videos and why making commercials is great preparation for directing features. Faris and Dayton also share how the way audiences reacted to Battle of the Sexes changed after the 2016 presidential election.
The Treatment
Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris: Battle of the Sexes Directing partners Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris discuss covering competition in Battle of the Sexes.
The Business
‘Ruby Sparks’ Filmmakers Filmmakers Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris talk with Kim Masters about the pressure to follow their 2006 indie sensation ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ with just the right second film. They had many starts and stops on other projects over the last six years and often went back to directing commercials to pay the bills. But in the end this married couple-- who compares co-directing with parenting-- landed the job directing the new romantic comedy ‘Ruby Sparks.’
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