Director James Hawes discusses his new film, The Amateur, with fellow Director Sarah Pirozek in a Q&A at the DGA theater in New York. In the conversation, he discusses insisting on the protagonist being geeky, clumsy, charming and smart to reflect his novice, utilizing his camera to capture the main character’s degrading perspective as the story unfolds, and how previously working on the show Black Mirror informed aspects of this film.

The film tells the story of Charlie Heller, a brilliant CIA decoder whose world comes crashing down after his wife dies in a London terrorist attack. When his supervisors refuse to act due to conflicting internal priorities, he utilizes his intelligence as the ultimate weapon and travels across the globe to hunt down those responsible.

See photos and a summary of this event below:

https://dga.org/Events/2025/May2025/The-Amateur_QnA_0425