Sam Taylor-Johnson on “the Dream” of Directing Husband Aaron in A Million Little Pieces
The adaptation of James Frey’s book—debuting at the Toronto Film Festival on Sunday—is the couple’s first collaboration since Nowhere Boy.
by JULIE MILLER
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Jeff Gros
Since making 2009’s brilliant John Lennon biopic Nowhere Boy, director Sam Taylor-Johnson and actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson had been looking for an excuse to work together again.
But their personal collaborations complicated reunion possibilities for several years. Sam and Aaron fell in love after making the movie, got married, and had two daughters. (Sam also has two older daughters from her first marriage.) Rather than leave the kids in the care of strangers, husband and wife took turns making movies—with Sam adapting E.L. James’s bodice-ripping best-seller Fifty Shades of Grey into an artful blockbuster; and Aaron cycling through genres in Anna Karenina,Godzilla, Avengers: Age of Ultron, and Nocturnal Animals.
Last year, though, the stars finally re-aligned for the Taylor-Johnsons. Sam signed on to direct an adaptation of James Frey’s 2003 book, A Million Little Pieces. And Aaron coincidentally had a gap in his schedule.
“The minute I knew he was available, it was clear that Aaron would be James. Absolutely, without question,” Sam said in an interview ahead of A Million Little Pieces’ premiere at the Toronto Film Festival. “I think it was serendipitous timing that he was available, the book rights were available, and the timing was perfect. . . . This was the dream since we first worked together. After [Nowhere Boy], we would both go to work on different projects, and I’d say, in my mind, ‘I’m leaving the best actor at home.’”