Moonlight's Barry Jenkins, vampire writer

The Oscar-winning director on his writing process, women in Hollywood, and that "dumbass thing with the envelope"

Barry Jenkins.
(Image credit: Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

Sitting in the Dolby Theater during the 2019 Academy Awards, something dawned on Barry Jenkins. "I was like, 'Yo, I don't think anybody white has won an Oscar,'" the director, screenwriter, and producer said.

The evening's winners at that point included Regina King, one of the stars of Jenkins' film If Beale Street Could Talk, who picked up the Best Supporting Actress award, and Black Panther's Ruth Carter and Hannah Beachler, who won for Best Costume Design and Best Production Design, respectively. Husband and wife duo Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, the directors of Free Solo, won Best Documentary Feature, and Reyka Zehtabchi won Best Documentary Short Subject for a film about menstruation, Period. End of Sentence.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.