Podcast Summary: “Chloé Zhao Is Yearning to Know How to Love”

Podcast: The Interview (The New York Times)
Host: David Marchese
Guest: Chloé Zhao
Date: January 24, 2026

Overview

This episode features filmmaker Chloé Zhao, acclaimed director of “Nomadland,” “Eternals,” and the recent “Hamnet.” The conversation dives deep into Zhao’s creative process, her internal struggles with connection and belonging, her views on awards culture, mortality, the mystical in art, and her personal journey through midlife crisis and learning to “love with [her] heart open.” Throughout, Zhao brings her characteristic vulnerability, wisdom, and poetic sensibility, offering a refreshingly honest perspective on art, leadership, and grappling with impermanence.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Navigating Awards Season

• Emotional Rollercoaster: Zhao finds awards season both validating and fraught, touching on childhood-rooted needs for connection and the risks of rejection.
  • “So many of us… started telling stories because we didn’t have the easiest childhood. So when your work… is being compared and judged… you could go as far as feeling a rejection of that is a rejection of who you are… whether your ability to belong… be safe or be loved.” (03:05)
• Community Aspect: Despite the “salesmanship,” Zhao enjoys the rare camaraderie with fellow filmmakers during awards season, likening it to “the village” reuniting.
  • Wishes for more cross-pollination among directors: “I think there should be a system where directors get to be on each other’s set. Otherwise, how do we keep learning?” (04:56)

2. Creative Process: Embracing Chaos and Collective Truth

• Leadership Styles in Directing: Zhao rejects macho “general” or “ringmaster” metaphors, describing her approach as fluid between “general” and “priestess” energies.
  • “Both can lead and both are needed… I like to be in those two extreme polarities… total surrender and then total control.” (07:29)
• On Filming Emotional Scenes:
  • The grief scene in “Hamnet” wasn’t planned, but arose from the synergy of cast and crew:
    • “When [Jessie] let out that very guttural scream of grief—that was not something that was planned… But I do believe it…came from the collective, the village.” (05:26)

3. Mortality, Grief, and Becoming a Death Doula

• Universality of Grief: Zhao and Maggie O’Farrell (author of “Hamnet”) agree that while society’s narratives around death change, the raw biology of grief does not.
  • “The grief of losing a loved one doesn’t change… [but] the societal understanding of what death is… and how it’s embedded in the culture has shifted so much.” (09:47)
• Personal Motivation:
  • “Because I have been terrified of death my whole life… I haven’t been able to love with my heart open because I’m so scared of losing love, which is a form of death.” (11:52)
• Facing Fear and Midlife Crisis:
  • Zhao uses the metaphor of seasons and chrysalis to describe her emotional transformation in her 40s: “I have passed the deepest part of the decomposing from the caterpillar…which was extremely uncomfortable. About a year and a half…” (14:49)
  • Making “Hamnet” was creatively and personally redemptive during this period.

4. Belonging, Abandonment, and the Roots of Artistic Drive

• Longing for Tribal Connection:
  • “We’re designed as… wolves, you know, like pack people… To be cast out of your tribe is the most painful thing you can experience.” (16:25)
  • Zhao reflects on family and cultural separation but resists easy explanations for her yearning, viewing trauma and identity as complex, layered phenomena.

5. Enchantment, Spiritual Hunger, and Mystery in Modern Life

• On Western Rationality:
  • Zhao argues the West’s move toward rationality has left a “spiritual hunger,” disconnecting most people from the mystical and the possibility of enchantment in daily life.
    • “There’s a spiritual hunger in modern life…there’s a deep loneliness and soul-level…emptiness.” (25:59)
• Universal Mysticism:
  • “You shouldn’t have to pay money to feel you’re connected to some kind of bigger thing… you yourself, waking up in the morning, has those tools to feel that kind of aliveness and enchantment.” (25:10)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Receiving Joy from the Unexpected:

  • “When that happens, I can feel it. And it’s the most exciting thing for me as a director, because I go, there’s no way any of us could have thought of that…that is truth happening in the moment.” (06:23)

• On the Human Experience of Impermanence:

  • “If in your life, eternity doesn’t exist, because you didn’t grow up with spirituality or religion…the eternity part is out…Then…all living things must die. That’s no fun…Then what’s the point?” (13:45)

• On Awards Rejections and Childhood Wounds:

  • “[At awards shows,] what is this fear when my film…gets rejected by the critics? What if I lose? …At best, it’s like, that person must have had an easier childhood. At worst, it’s like, I don’t belong. They reject me. I may as well just die.” (18:29)

• On Searching for Ancestral Lineage:

  • “His [Terrence Malick’s] films allowed me to become a part of a lineage…as a storyteller, you feel like you belong somewhere.” (37:01)

Important Timestamps

• [02:54] – Zhao discusses the emotional complexity of awards season and its connection to her childhood.
• [05:00] – Explains her collaborative, chaos-embracing directing style.
• [07:29] – Contrasts masculine and feminine (general/priestess) leadership in film.
• [09:32] – Discusses changing societal attitudes to death and grief.
• [11:52] – Explains motivation for training as a death doula and fear of impermanence.
• [14:49] – Describes her midlife crisis and personal rebirth metaphor.
• [18:29] – Connects feelings of exclusion at awards shows to deeper issues of tribal belonging.
• [23:47] – Shares views on enchantment and disenchantment in the modern world.
• [29:50] – Teaches Marchese a physical “energy dropping in” exercise.
• [33:22] – Recounts transformative experiences from watching films like “Happy Together” and “Tree of Life.”
• [37:01] – Narrates the story of being called by Terrence Malick.
• [43:14] – Describes her training as a death doula and the solitary experience of dying.
• [47:04] – Discusses the paradox of professional success versus personal satisfaction.
• [48:37] – Embraces “the compost” of life and learning to find pleasure even in failure.

Memorable Anecdotes

• Sims Addiction & Control:

  • “I was so obsessed with Sims…so that I could control these virtual characters… I would control everything with such extreme to regulate myself. I played Sims for so long, years of my life.” (41:53)

• Terrence Malick’s Surprise Call:

  • Zhao describes the surreal experience of receiving a call from her filmmaking hero, feeling “like I come from his lineage.” (37:01)

• Midlife Crisis as Chrysalis:

  • Compares her emotional upheaval to a caterpillar becoming a butterfly: “The decomposing…was extremely uncomfortable…Hamnet was what saved me.” (14:49)

Tone & Style

The episode is intimate, reflective, and intellectually curious—marked by poetic metaphor, deep spiritual inquiry, and flashes of humor and humility. Zhao speaks with generosity and a searching vulnerability, and Marchese matches her with thoughtful, probing, and often self-revealing questions.

Closing Reflections

Chloé Zhao’s interview offers much more than a behind-the-scenes look at filmmaking; it is a meditation on what it means to be human, to yearn for love, and to seek meaning amid impermanence. Her insights into leadership, grief, and belonging reveal the depth behind her celebrated films and highlight the universal struggles that drive creative work and self-understanding.

For listeners interested in art, mortality, creativity, and the quest for meaning, this is a rich and rewarding conversation.