Why Humane’s Caitlin Cronenberg Changed Her Mind About Directing

For the longest time, Caitlin Cronenberg wanted no part of the director’s chair. As a highly successful photographer who’s shot everyone and everything — including the much-publicized cover art for Drake’s fourth studio album, Views — she had no interest in following in the footsteps of her father, David Cronenberg, and older brother, Brandon Cronenberg. But everything started to change when Schitt’s Creek star Annie Murphy gave Caitlin a call about a low-pressure directing job that would ultimately whet her appetite en route to her feature directorial debut, Humane.

“It was very much thrust upon me by my friend Annie Murphy from Schitt’s Creek. She was doing a web series [The Plateaus] and needed a fake music video … and over the course of that process, I realized that directing felt very natural to me,” Cronenberg tells The Hollywood Reporter. “And when I did a short film called The Endings [2018], I got an agent’s attention in L.A. even though I wasn’t seeking out an agent or representation in any way. So it happened quite naturally. I trusted the process, and here we are.”

Humane is a family-oriented thriller that takes place in the near future, as a worldwide ecological disaster has forced world leaders to reduce each of their nation’s populations by 20 percent. The York family — led by patriarch and recently retired newsman, Charles York (Peter Gallagher) — reunite for a family dinner at their castle-like home where Charles informs his four children that he and his current wife, Dawn (Uni Park), are enlisting in the Department of Citizen Strategy’s (D.O.C.S) euthanasia program. As a result of this shocking news, arguments break out among the adult children about Charles’ estate and whether this is just another way of bolstering his already intimidating legacy.

While the four York children have always wrestled with their father’s legacy, Cronenberg insists that this story wasn’t a way to explore her own feelings regarding her father’s sizable legacy as a horror filmmaker.

“The Charles York character is very, very different from my own experience with my father,” Cronenberg says. “My upbringing was very different from that, and there are no similarities really between my dad and the Charles York character.”

At one point, the Cronenberg patriarch actually had a small cameo in the film, but it ended up on the cutting room floor. So Caitlin opted to instead give him a voice cameo, as D.O.C.S. produces weekly propaganda commercials in order to highlight the “Enlisters of the Week.”

“The ‘Enlisters of the Week’ commercials were actually a consolation prize for [David Cronenberg]. He was in the film as a cameo, but he got cut out. So we brought him in to do the voiceovers on the commercials so he wouldn’t be sad,” Caitlin jokes. “But I also thought that he had the right tone of voice. I wanted someone who you would believe is calm and sweet to put you at ease, which he did very well.”

When Caitlin sat down to watch her assembly cut following 20 days of principal photography, she experienced what many filmmakers often feel, regardless of how much experience they have. 

“I have never been so upset as the first time I watched an assembly of [Humane]. I thought, ‘Oh no, this is garbage. I’ve made garbage and this is a terrible film,’” Cronenberg recalls.  

However, she then called her brother, Brandon, who, like Caitlin, has made his own name for himself as the filmmaker behind genre gems such as Antiviral (2012), Possessor (2022) and Infinity Pool (2023). 

“I called my brother and I said, ‘My film is garbage.’ And he said, ‘Oh no! You never hate a film as much as the first time you see an assembly, but then it gets better,’” Caitlin recalls. “And that is true. So much changed for the better.”

Below, during a recent conversation with THR, Cronenberg also discusses TikTok’s surprising response to the Humane trailer, before getting candid about her time as a still photographer on film and TV sets. 

So, knowing that filmmaking is the family business, was photography a purposeful detour at first? It’s still in the same ballpark, especially still photography, but were you initially trying to defy any expectations that people might have had for you? 

It’s easy to say that — and I think I have in the past said that — but I just found what I loved, honestly. I was in school for fashion design when I fell into a photography job, and it felt right, so I kept doing it. I certainly did not see myself transitioning to the director’s chair. I did a lot of unit [stills] photography on film and television [sets], and I was like, “[Directing] is boring. I couldn’t do this. I don’t have the patience for this job.” And then, as I got older and had children, I realized that maybe I did have the patience for [directing]. In the early days of my photography career, I just liked that I could go out and do a project by myself. There was something really freeing about that and not having to work with other people. Whereas now, I see the idea of working with other people as such a gift, and having this kind of collaboration on film is so much fun. So I was more of an independent worker back in my early photography days.

Do you remember when you first felt the urge to direct in some capacity?

Yes, it was very much thrust upon me by my friend Annie Murphy from Schitt’s Creek. She was doing a web series [The Plateaus] and needed a fake music video, so she’s the one who reached out to me and said, “I think you should direct this fake music video.” So I did, and over the course of that process, I realized that directing felt very natural to me and that I liked this feeling of collaboration and that it could be so much fun. But I wanted to make sure that I felt that way, so I did a couple of music videos and some commercials, and it kept feeling right. And when I did a short film called The Endings [2018], I got an agent’s attention in L.A. even though I wasn’t seeking out an agent or representation in any way. So it happened quite naturally. I trusted the process, and here we are. 

So you already knew the writer-producer, Michael Sparaga, and he’s the one who originally sent you the Humane script to possibly direct. Did the ecological side of things tap into your own anxieties? Or did you mostly connect with the family story?

I enjoyed the fact that it was a family drama set within this strange and chaotic world. I thought that it was an interesting way to tell a family story, and that’s the thing that struck me the most, especially with a very unique premise. I hadn’t come across anything even close to this premise. The characters were also these very detailed and despicable people yet also kind of likable. They felt very human and very layered and nuanced and real, and so I wanted to explore that. It just felt like the right story for me to tell.

Peter Gallagher’s patriarchal figure, Charles York, is a recently retired newsman with a legacy that looms large among his family, and I have to imagine that you could relate to that dynamic on the page. Did you know right away that you could capture it honestly?

The Charles York character is very, very different from my own experience with my father. Peter Gallagher plays this stoic and cold father figure who attempts to be loving. So I love it as this touchpoint of what people would imagine that kind of character to be. But my upbringing was very different from that, and there are no similarities really between my dad and the Charles York character. Peter, as a person and as an actor, is a very fatherly figure. He was very, very kind and generous, and he kept telling me that he was proud of me while we were working. So that was very nice.

Between composing a photograph and composing a shot, did your existing skill set serve you well? Do the same fundamental principles still apply? 

I think so, sure. There’s also a certain amount of trust that you put into your cinematographer [Douglas Koch] and your camera operators, and discussions ahead of time are incredibly helpful in ensuring that you’re on the same page, compositionally. Thankfully, I had an incredible crew who understood what I was trying to achieve, and it was a very collaborative experience to lens each shot and decide together what we wanted. But you start every shot with the [idea] in mind that if this were a still photograph, it would be composed the way that I would compose it. So it did feel like that, yeah. 

The Cronenberg sensibility is certainly present in this film, and adjectives like macabre and twisted come to mind. There’s also dark humor and a bit of body horror. Are you all actually drawn to the same aesthetic, or are there more differences in taste than people might realize? 

In terms of what we enjoy watching, we have quite different tastes. We would need a therapist to weigh in on if I’m drawn to this level of darkness because it’s what I grew up with, but I also didn’t grow up watching those films. I was a total scaredy cat, and I didn’t watch horror films growing up. So, is it that I was given permission by my upbringing and by the art of my predecessors in my family to do something and to take it that extra mile? Maybe. It’s very hard to know because I don’t know anything different, but the movies that I like to watch when I’m trying to unwind are not necessarily at all the same as what my dad and my brother watch. So we certainly all have very different external factors that inform the work that we’re doing in very different ways. Do we have an unspoken heart connection to darkness? Maybe. I mean, I used to be a goth, so I don’t know.

The villain, Bob (Enrico Colantoni), makes the point that if people really did have to enlist to reduce the population, the righteous population would all go first to protect their loved ones’ futures. However, with all those people gone, what kind of world are they actually leaving for their loved ones?

It is absolutely a valid point, and I’ve spent a lot of time trying not to think about it, because it’s terrifying to think that we could be left in a world where there are no more righteous people. One could argue that there could potentially be more than one righteous person in a family, and the one who went first would leave other righteous ones behind, and maybe their selflessness and righteousness would teach lessons to the others. That’s the hope, right? In a situation like that, you hope that those who are left would understand the sacrifices that were made to protect them and that they would then become the righteous ones. That’s what I hope would happen. 

But interestingly, just as a little bit of a digression, when the trailer for this film came out, the TikTok crowd went insane to say that they would enlist. This generation of people on TikTok — I don’t know who these people are or their ages — but there were 800,000 comments on the trailer, saying, “Oh, they would reach 20 percent [enlistment] in a day. I would enlist right now.” Are these people just so distraught with the state of the world that they would immediately exit it if they had the chance? I’m not entirely sure, but it was a very, very interesting discovery about this generation.

For all his sadistic faults, at least Bob is a What About Bob? fan. 

Have you been to his Instagram, WhatAboutBob42? It’s a real account. It’s an Easter egg. 

Did you ever find out if there is some theoretical truth to the way these characters have to avoid sunlight in this ecologically damaged world? Is there a possibility that we’ll all have to live like vampires?

I just know that in my own lifetime, the sun has become harsher. I spoke to people who are now in their seventies about tanning in the ‘60s and lathering up with baby oil and still not getting sunburns, and now you can get a sunburn through the clouds. We now wear sunscreen to go skiing. But I did not consult scientists on any of this, nor do I profess to be a scientist in any way. I do believe that everything that is happening with climate change and the ozone layer and UV rays getting stronger is absolutely true. There are people who now walk around with umbrellas on mildly sunny days because they are worried about getting sunburns. So it is very scary, especially as a parent. I have two young kids who love being outside, and even on a snowy day, it’s very terrifying to wonder if I need to be putting sunscreen on my children. I turn 40 this year, and I don’t remember being six and having my parents follow me around with sunscreen. Some of that probably has to do with the internet and having more information and scaring people into thinking that. But who’s to say that this isn’t accurate information? So it’s a good time to educate ourselves on what’s actually happening with the world, but you do hear people make these sweeping statements, saying, “Within our lifetime, this and this will happen.” And it’s utterly terrifying. It has to be true, too, if you think about the oceans and the coral reefs and the sea life and the way that it’s getting harder for them to survive. So something has to be happening with the sun.

The editing room is often regarded as the final rewrite, so how much did the movie change or not change? 

So much changed! People told me going in that magic happens in the editing room, and I did not fully grasp or understand how true that was. Of course, you think you’re going to edit the film as it was written in the script, and then it’s going to be good because everything you shot was good and all your actors were good. But I have never been so upset as the first time I watched an assembly of the film. I thought, “Oh no, this is garbage. I’ve made garbage and this is a terrible film.” Luckily, at that point, I called my brother and I said, “My film is garbage.” And he said, “Oh no! You never hate a film as much as the first time you see an assembly, but then it gets better.” And that is true. We cut full sequences. We re-edited full sequences in a new way. We reordered things. We added the needle drop at the beginning [Trooper’s “We’re Here For A Good Time (Not A Long Time)”]. We also cut out the entire first sequence as written. So much of it changed, but I knew that we had solid performances. So I knew that we would have what we needed, but so much changed for the better. 

The voiceover actor who does the D.O.C.S. weekly updates, did you make him do endless takes?

(Laughs.) The “Enlisters of the Week” commercials were actually a consolation prize for [David Cronenberg]. He was in the film as a cameo, but he got cut out. So we brought him in to do the voiceovers on the commercials so he wouldn’t be sad. (Laughs.) But I also thought that he had the right tone of voice. I wanted someone who you would believe is calm and sweet to put you at ease, which he did very well. But he only did a couple takes; we didn’t overwork him. 

I recently spoke to Denis Villeneuve about the origin of Enemy, which included you as the still photographer on set. And considering that I love that film and have never talked to someone who’s done that job, do you mind summing up your experience on that set? 

I’ll mostly speak generally because Enemy was a particularly challenging set for me. Having one actor play two characters presents a very distinct and very unusual challenge, because if you want a still of them together, you have to shoot both sides from the exact same angle. 

Being a still photographer is very difficult. It is essentially the least important crew member. You are expendable according to the actors and everybody else, because you are the only role that is not instrumental in the actual crafting of the film. Yes, you are important for publicity and you’re important for lots of other reasons, but you can’t kick the boom operator off set because they’re in your eyeline. You can kick off the still photographer. 

But I had many amazing opportunities to work with fantastic actors and directors, and people who were really respectful and would tell me how they wanted to work. Sometimes, as a still photographer, you’re standing right beside the camera and shooting as the action plays out, but sometimes, actors prefer you to come in after and do a special setup so that they aren’t distracted by you. Both are true, both happen. But I have been kicked off set a lot by people who considered me in their eyeline, and you have to make yourself very small and fit in between people. So it’s a very, very challenging job, and I am happy to not be doing it anymore. I also felt very happy and lucky to have wonderful still photographers on our Humane set, and I wanted to give them lots of hugs and snacks because it’s a really hard job to do. 

But it was incredible to work with Denis, and it’s actually so fascinating to see his progression. It’s incredibly impressive and beautiful. He’s a lovely, lovely human being, and I am thrilled for him that he has found such incredible success with these gigantic films. But I agree with you that Enemy is wonderful. I love his smaller and kind of tighter earlier films, too. 

I’ve been told that TV still photographers mostly do their work during rehearsals, as opposed to during a take. 

What makes that difficult is that the actors are often not even in full costume. Sometimes, during rehearsals, they’re wearing the wrong shoes or a coat. They also haven’t had touch-ups yet. So it’s important to discuss these things with the people who you’re working with and say, “Look, if you want me to shoot the rehearsals and then skedaddle for the actual takes, then they have to be at a hundred for me to do that.” So you often don’t have a lot of time, and again, it’s a very, very challenging job. But if you have the right team members — like producers who are really pushing to get the right stills of people in that world — then it becomes a lot easier. But every production is different. 

I did stills on Maps to the Stars, and I discussed with Julianne Moore ahead of time that she really wanted to just get through each take. And once we were moving on, I would come in and do a special where she would do the whole scene for me again. So, having that discussion upfront just gave us such a better workflow. I could then be completely off set during the actual shooting, and everybody knew I was coming in at the end and that she would stay there. Sometimes, people get up and they move on. So my advice to any future still photographers is to just have these conversations upfront. It really makes all the difference, and you don’t feel as expendable.

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Humane is now available in select theaters.