During an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, filmmaker and The Matrix franchise co-creator Lilly Wachowski discussed her departure from Hollywood after losing creative interest.
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Wachowski told the outlet that she began losing interest in the creative process of filmmaking following her demanding production schedule beginning with 1999’s The Matrix, the sequels, the 2012 movie Cloud Atlas, and Netflix’s Sense8 series.
“I got in when film was at its peak,” Wachowski said, “before boards and marketers found a way to wrangle movies. Eventually, all those people and institutions ended up in the room with you and specifically behind the typewriter and behind the lens and behind the Avid. It created a bit of tension for me personally. I got to this breaking point and I had to walk away.”
Wachowski exited Sense8 and the industry completely nearly six years ago in order to do “some personal world-building,” including focusing on her wellbeing and happiness, studying at the School of the Art Institue of Chicago, experimenting with stand-up comedy, and beginning the process of her gender transition.
The filmmaker further explained how The Matrix was “born out of a lot of anger and a lot of rage” towards “capitalism and corporatized structure and forms of oppression…[the] seething rage within me was about my own oppression, that I [was forcing] myself to remain in the closet.”
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Wachowski added that she wants to be able to use her platform to tell more LGBTQ+ stories, such as the comedy Work in Progress Wachowski executive produces. Work in Progress is Wachowski’s, an “out and proud trans woman,” first venture back into Hollywood.
“I’m getting more queer and trans folks on the screen to show what we’re capable of and what amazing artists we are. That’s a hard thing to give up,” she said.
Work in Progress airs on Showtime and stars co-creator Abby McEnany, Karin Anglin, Celeste Pechous, Julia Sweeney, and Theo Germaine. The comedy series was picked up for a 10-episode second season in January.
(Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)
