On Sunday morning, as the sun began to peek through the clouds after a sudden desert deluge, stars and filmmakers gathered for Variety’s 10 Directors to Watch and Creative Impact Awards brunch at the Parker Hotel in Palm Springs.
The annual event, held the day after the Palm Springs International Film Awards, awarded Dwayne Johnson the Creative Impact Acting Award, Teyana Taylor the Creative Impact Breakthrough Performance Award and Guillermo del Toro the Creative Impact Directing Award.
Colman Domingo presented the award to Dwayne Johnson and said, “Congratulations, my friend, you are amazing!”
Johnson then talked about fellow winner del Toro and his first time presenting at the Golden Globes in 2017, when The Shape of Water was nominated.
Johnson was sitting at a table at “The Shape of Water” and was surprised to meet del Toro there. “He was very nice to me,” Johnson said. After del Toro won the Golden Globe for Best Director, he went straight to Johnson, hugged him, and yelled, “I did it!”
“And I said, ‘I did it!’ I’ll never forget it, and everyone came up to me afterward and congratulated me,” Johnson laughed.
Johnson received praise for his role as MMA fighter Mark Carr in Smashing Machines, saying, “My life changed and I discovered things about myself in ways I never expected.”
Johnson spoke about Carr, who had two overdoses, and how he dealt with the toll and pressures of drug addiction. He counts 15 friends who have died from drugs or suicide. he said. “This role gave me a higher level of empathy…and the realization that you know who’s really going through something right now? Guys. We’re all going through it.”
“This message goes out to everyone who is going through it, everyone who is fighting it,” Johnson concluded.
Teyana Taylor and Chase Infinity attend Variety’s Creative Impact Awards and 10 Directors to Watch Brunch.
Michael Buckner/Variety
Teyana Taylor was introduced by her One Battle After Another co-star Chase Infinity, who said her role as Paphidia Beverly Hills “really punched a hole in the screen.”
Taylor said it “seems kind of ironic” that it would be celebrated as a milestone 20 years into his career. She yelled to her two young daughters at the table, “Are you on the phone?”
Describing her decision to retire from music five years ago because she felt she had reached her limit, she likened herself to the scent of a Glade plug-in. “Why only plug it in the bathroom when you can make the whole room smell good?”
“Are you going to plug me into every outlet! I want to take up every square foot!” she said. “There are many great directors I’ve been lucky enough to work with, but none have been as influential as Paul Thomas Anderson.” Taylor is preparing to direct his first feature film.
Oscar Isaac introduced del Toro, saying that in Guillermo’s films “transformation is constant”, adding that he “redefined what genre cinema can be” and brought “poetry to horror”.
Del Toro talked about the “religious experience” he had as a child when he first saw James Whale’s Frankenstein, and afterwards said he was so grateful to have Frankenstein’s iconic star’s daughter, Sarah Karloff, as his brunch guest.
“Sometimes the world is so complex that it can only be explained by the power of monsters,” he said. “We are in such a time now.”
“A director has to have two skins: a thick skin for business and the world, and a thin skin for collaborators and hearts,” said director Del Toro, spewing out one point after another.
“It’s not just the size of the screen, it’s the size of the idea,” he continued. “Ambition includes failure, which is right next to success. There is no number on the door. If you knock on that door, it will open. That door will either be your dream supermodel or your mother in curlers.”
He addressed Variety magazine’s “10 Directors to Watch” table and said, “Be kind, get involved, believe in your art. In a time when people say art doesn’t matter, that’s always a prelude to fascism. They think they can degrade everything that makes us a little better, a little more human. And there are monsters in my book and in my life.”
Peter DeBrugge, Variety’s chief film critic, introduced this year’s 10 directors to watch, explaining that winner Dave Green is stuck in Puerto Rico due to aviation restrictions. All of the filmmakers except Greene and Harry Righton attended the brunch.
The director to watch is Akinola Davis Jr. (My Father’s Shadow). Beth de Araujo (“Josephine”). Jan-Ole Gerster (“The Island”). Sarah Gohar (“Happy Birthday”). Dave Green (“Coyote vs. Acme”); Chandler Rebak (“Mile End Kick”); Harry Righton (“Pillion”); NB Major (“Run Amok”); Kristen Stewart (“The Chronology of Water”) and Walter Thompson-Hernandez (“If I Go Will They Miss Me”).
Peter DeBrugge (left), Akinola Davis, Beth de Araujo, Chandler Rebak, Walter Thompson-Hernandez, Kristen Stewart, NB Major, Sarah Gohar, and Jean-Ole Gerster at Variety’s Creative Impact Awards and 10 Directors to Watch Brunch.
Michael Buckner/Variety
