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The Big Picture · Interview

Interview With 'Hidden Figures' Director Ted Melfi | The Big Picture (Ep. 1)

January 13, 2017/ 41 min/ Sean Fennessey

Sean Fennessey talks to Ted Melfi about Hidden Figures, the year it took to make, and how a movie about math and three black women became the number one film in the country.

9 films across 1 segment.

AI-generated This episode was transcribed and analyzed with AI models. The matches aren't perfect — expect the occasional misheard title or a link to the wrong film.

Ted Melfi on 'Hidden Figures'

Hidden Figures poster
Ted Melfi on

Hidden Figures 2016

The number one movie in the country the weekend they talked. Adapted from Margot Lee Shetterly's book about Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson, the NASA mathematicians behind the Mercury missions. Melfi wrote it off a 55-page book proposal and a first draft by Allison Schroeder, finished the script in December 2015, and was shooting by March 2016; Shetterly's finished book arrived mid-shoot and he refused to read it. He spent a month writing the scene where Jim Parsons explains re-entry math, and the film's last third is verbatim NASA transcripts. Pharrell wrote the score and songs; Hans Zimmer and Ben Wallfisch composed.

St. Vincent poster
Ted Melfi on

St. Vincent 2014

Melfi's prior feature, with Bill Murray. He'd wanted Taraji P. Henson for it, and contrasts Murray's live-in-the-moment freedom with Kevin Costner's meticulous planning.

Loving poster
Ted Melfi on

Loving 2016

Named alongside Fences and Moonlight as proof the wave of 2016 films wasn't a reaction to Oscars So White; Hollywood had been developing them for years.

The Birth of a Nation poster
Ted Melfi on

The Birth of a Nation 2016

Melfi notes Nate Parker had been working on it for eight years.

Moonlight poster
Ted Melfi on

Moonlight 2016

Cited among the long-gestating films that only looked like a coordinated response.

Fences poster
Ted Melfi on

Fences 2016

Melfi points to how long Denzel had been circling it. Later the subject of the 'Hidden Fences' red-carpet flubs.

Going in Style poster
Ted Melfi on

Going in Style 2017

Where Melfi befriended Dustin Hoffman, who called about Hidden Figures, though Hoffman didn't end up in the film.

The Jungle Book poster
Ted Melfi on

The Jungle Book 2016

His example of a big-budget studio movie that still carries a moral; he praises Jon Favreau's version.

Also mentioned raised along the way

The 'Hidden Fences' Twitter mashups 12 Years a SlaveLee Daniels' The ButlerThe Color PurplePrecious

Not films filtered out: TV, games, ads

Not films Hidden Fences (the red-carpet title flub by Jenna Bush Hager and Michael Keaton, not a real movie)

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