Tom Ford is ready to return to the director’s chair, and this time, he’s focusing on original screenplays.
The “Nocturnal Animals” helmer told GQ that he in part stepped away from his iconic fashion career as a designer to instead focus on filmmaking.
“There are several reasons I sold my company,” Ford said. “I felt, after 35 years, I had said everything I could say with fashion. It’s important to know when to get off the stage. I loved making the two films that I made. That was the most fun I’ve ever had in my entire life.”
Ford directed “A Single Man” in 2009 and “Nocturnal Animals” in 2016, with both films being adaptations.
“I’m 62. Hopefully, I’ll remain somewhat together until 82. So I want to spend the next 20 years of my life making films,” Ford said. “And the clock is ticking. And so it was time to say goodbye to fashion. Fashion is a younger man’s game.”
The former Gucci creative director added, “As a director, it takes three years to make a movie. I have maybe time for five more movies in my life. So they have to be meaningful.”
Ford revealed that he has various projects in the works, including one original screenplay, which he teased to be an “extremely personal thing, completely from scratch.”
Ford continued, “Then another is a book from Anne Rice. We started the process in 2004, while she was alive, obviously. […] You know, Anne Rice, in one of her vampire books, wrote that every 150 years, vampires had to dig themselves down into the ground in order to come back up eventually and appreciate life again. That it was all just too much. And that’s what I feel this is — this is like a reset. I needed that to figure out act three.”
Ford called directing “absolutely expository,” saying that his routine keeps him grounded.
“I start every morning at nine o’clock. I sit down and I work from nine until one. Even if I don’t think I have anything to say, I type. The beauty really for me of filmmaking is the writing,” he said, “because when you’re writing it, it’s perfect. Nobody fucks up. The clothes are perfect. Everyone’s saying it exactly the way you want. It’s absolutely clear. The hard part for me is shooting — because this didn’t work, that didn’t work. You’ve got to keep moving. You’ve got a schedule.”
Ford’s sobriety journey inspired penning “A Single Man,” which he felt “compelled” to complete “because Christopher Isherwood was very spiritual, in an Eastern way. I was reading the Tao Te Ching every night before I’d go to bed. I’d read one of those very potent sentences, and I was able to have it.”
Ford’s own life has also been immortalized onscreen, namely with Ridley Scott’s “House of Gucci.” Ford said of the controversial film set in the world of Italian luxury fashion, “Those scenes in the Ridley Scott movie where I come in and meet with Maurizio and say, ‘I see men in thongs,’ none of that ever happened. I didn’t see men in thongs at first. That came later.” Ford previously called “House of Gucci” a “‘Saturday Night Live’ version” of reality.
Former late-night host James Corden revealed in 2022 that Ford was formerly attached to adapt stage play “The Whale” with Corden cast in the lead role; Darren Aronofsky’s film starring Brendan Fraser landed the Best Actor Oscar.
