CherryPicks: As A Call To Spy and Radium Girls are both based on real-life stories—how did you approach grounding the films in the past while also highlighting such incredible, brave women? 

Lydia Dean Pilcher: The world-building part of making movies is exciting. On A Call to Spy, I undertook deep research in archives, museums, and scouting all of the real sites in Lyon that our characters lived and moved between during WWII. The most significant visual key was creating our French exteriors in Budapest, a city that underwent devastating bombing in WWII; it was a beautiful visual gut punch of texture to make frames and shots every day, creating the emotionally desperate world in which our female spies, Noor Inayat Khan (Radhika Apte) Virginia Hall (Sarah Megan Thomas), and Vera Atkins (Stana Katic), lived and worked.

On Radium Girls, as we had a smaller budget of under $1M, Ginny Mohler (co-director) and I decided to create a visual style using archival footage that was constructed in connection to the lens of Etta’s documentary camera. We filmed some connective sequences with our actors using a 16mm Bolex and black & white film to help blend the period into the larger colorful world in which the Radium Girls lived. Our screenwriters, Ginny and Brittany Shaw, had started their careers out of film school as archival footage researchers, and their experience in studying footage from the time informed a lot of the choices we made.

Radium Girls and A Call to Spy, are based on research and interviews. You produced The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, which is based on a bestselling book—how is working with source material different from working on a project that’s based on pre-existing intellectual property?   

LDP: Adaptations can be approached in many different ways—slice of the story you open up, or a life, or an expanse of history for starters. A book has a built-in perspective, branding that may need to be considered, and a road map—if you choose to follow it. Either way, you bring your own vision to the material and make these decisions. My approach is to decide where the essence resides for the story I want to tell. Once you’re on firm ground in this respect, you can turn to art and your imagination to find the most dramatic and visually emotional ways to convey this. 

Radium Girls writer Brittany Shaw was very keen on the idea of bringing The Book of the Dead into our movie. She felt Normandi Ellis’s book, Awakening Osiris, could be a portal into the hearts of the Cavallo sisters, who were finding themselves in a spiralling existential reality as they uncovered a scandalous truth. I was very inspired by Brittany’s thinking and we talked to Normandi, who was very happy for us to use her translation. Using The Book of the Dead on screen gives us a novel sense of internal poetry and depth of thought from our characters Bessie (Joey King) and Jo (Abby Quinn). This overall essence was true to our period. The timeline in which the Radium Girls existed followed the discovery of King Tutankhamun’s tomb, which had made headlines, setting off cultural waves of fascination with Ancient Egypt around the world.

The cast in Call To Spy is diverse compared to most period pieces, and over your career you have done a great job of featuring characters who normally wouldn’t be celebrated—can you tell us more about the steps you have taken to make sure your films/sets are inclusive behind and in front of the camera? 

LDP: It sounds simple when you say it, but it requires deliberate focus in practice. You have to check your bias constantly—we all have it—and be open to leaving the confines of the world you know. It’s a creative act unto itself to think about how the team you hire and the world you create can reflect not only the real world we live in, but also the world in which we want to live. Every crew and cast member on a set can make immeasurable contributions to the telling of the story—from the lighting and camera angles chosen to a creative conversation you may have with the craft service person that sparks an idea to an inimitable prop that inspires an actor and shapes the telling. Why wouldn’t you want a wide range of cultural experience and perspectives on your team? The production set is an exciting community of talent and craft, and filmmakers should never forget the power they wield in designing the world of a story.  

You started your career directing documentaries, moved on to producing, and then made the jump to directing narratives—did anything change in the industry that led you on this path? Or has it been a long-term goal to direct? 

LDP: I’ve always followed my filmmaker heart, and producing has allowed me to cultivate and make multiple movies happen at once in collaboration with others’ visions. I’ve been very lucky to work and partner with so many provocative auteur directors, which is a part of my life that I treasure. Whether the times were life-altering, hard and stressful, or passionate and joyful, I’ve loved every part of it. I have a lot of respect for the craft involved in what we do, and that takes time, exposure, and experience to develop. For me, it’s become the right time, and an exciting time, to explore ideas and themes on my own that I care deeply about. 

As  Founder and Chair of the PGA Women's Impact Network, whose goal is to broaden the Guild’s commitment to diversity with a focus on gender inequity, and Co-Founder of PGA Green, which is dedicated to supporting sustainability, where do you see the industry in 10 years?  

LDP: Well, the question really is “where do we see the world in ten years?” We can see the infrastructure of our culture now in ways that we couldn’t see before, and finally, there is more awareness around the need for systemic change.  What we have going for us is that millennials are the largest living adult generation and they are the most racially and ethnically diverse adult population in U.S. history. But our goal should be to move decision-makers off of diversity being only about statistics and focus on shifting mainstream culture into a realm that embodies a wide range of perspectives, ideas, thoughts and experiences. Storytelling, the bully pulpit of our industry, is a powerful way to do this.

With climate justice movements, the younger generations are powerfully angry about the environmental crisis that older generations have created. The NY Times reviewer, Kristen Yoonsoo Kim described the Radium Girls story as a tale of “capitalist greed trumping employees’ safety” . Almost one hundred years later, EPA Superfund sites are still cleaning up the radium contamination of groundwater and waste from the factories that were poured into concrete mixes for sidewalks and housing foundations. I hope our story will show how important it is for governments to value all human lives equally, recognize that humans have caused massive destruction to our environment, and acknowledge that climate change is real. One of PGA Green’s initiatives with 11 studio and large production company partners is Greenproductionguide.com. You can keep up with the latest conversations around sustainability in our industry and also find a whole host of tools and resources to “green” your sets, including a carbon calculator.  On our site, you’ll also find COVID-19 Return to Work Resources to help us ensure sustainability remains at the forefront as production rebuilds. 

Can you describe how film has shaped you?

LDP: The storied paths I’ve taken through so many countries and cultures have had the biggest influence on my life. Working on films around the world has prepared me well for the challenges of globalization where colonial mentalities are often still prevalent, provoking conflict, and are now evolving into extreme nationalism and economic inequality. One way is not the only way of doing things, nor even necessarily the right way, in a different culture with a different history one may not fully understand. I realize it’s been a privilege to be allowed to work in the complexities of other cultures and to experience different ways of working, and new ways of seeing and thinking. We all have so much to learn and understand. It’s invigorating, and I wish more people could share this feeling.

What advice would you give to someone who is looking to break into the film industry?

LDP: Our business is an apprentice business, but it’s also about networks. Find mentors, meet people, and join communities that speak to your interests. If you are looking to be a storyteller, hone your sense of craft (camera, editing, writing, working with actors, etc.) and figure out what it is that identifies your voice and what you want to say…find your vision!