Oscar-winning filmmaker Chloé Zhao has revealed that she once dreamed of becoming a manga artist before finding her path in cinema.
Speaking during a career masterclass at the Venice Film Festival on Friday, the director reflected on her early creative ambitions, her experience making Marvel’s Eternals, and her evolving relationship with filmmaking.
When Chloé Zhao was growing up, she dreamed not of directing movies but becoming a manga artist.
“But I wasn’t very good at drawing. I wasn’t up to standard,” she said with a laugh. “I wanted to tell stories. I didn’t think cinema was an option for me.”
Zhao ultimately became one of contemporary cinema’s most acclaimed directors, helming the 2020 Oscar-winning drama Nomadland and the 2025 Shakespearean drama Hamnet.
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Her childhood love of manga came full circle with Marvel’s 2021 superhero epic Eternals, which featured an ensemble cast including Gemma Chan, Richard Madden, Kumail Nanjiani, Brian Tyree Henry, Barry Keoghan, Salma Hayek and Angelina Jolie.
“I loved doing it,” she said of directing the movie. “For any of you who love anime, I know you know this was a girl’s dream come true. Comic books are the western equivalent of [manga]. They are very different, but I live in the west, and that’s what I had access to.”
While superhero films have faced a more difficult commercial climate in the years since the pandemic, Zhao defended the importance of storytelling across all genres and formats.
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“I do feel it’s important to not write off stories because we don’t consider them high art,” she said. “The purpose of storytelling for me, humbly, is to create containers for people … to try to process what they need to process. Archetypes are such a great way to do it — and we see them in myths — is because it’s something we all share.”
Zhao also pushed back on the suggestion that Eternals represented a dramatic departure from Nomadland, her acclaimed road drama starring Frances McDormand.
“What contrast? It’s people in nature… with animals… who have complicated relationships with them,” Zhao said.
The filmmaker’s Venice appearance marked a return to the festival, where Nomadland premiered in 2020 and won the Golden Lion. The film later earned Zhao widespread awards recognition, including the Academy Award for Best Director.
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During the masterclass, Zhao said she did not grow up watching many films. She spent part of her late twenties working as a bartender before discovering cinema as the medium through which she could tell stories.
“I was still longing to tell stories,” she said. “Film became a very natural choice. I always say film directors don’t actually need to know how to do anything really well. I see it as someone who is going to manage an ecosystem, bringing everyone together.”
Despite her success, Zhao also shared that she has recently been questioning the role of screens in her life and career.
“My life is occupied by screens. Am I missing life because I was always there trying to capture it?” she asked rhetorically. “I am going through that crisis right now.”
