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“You can always see it coming while you’re making it,” Howard said, acknowledging the critical and commercial failure of Lady in the Water. “I’ve never been shocked when something doesn’t work. But I’m just an actor – you’re there to serve a director’s vision. If a movie doesn’t turn out the way that you envisioned, you can barely feel disappointed because it’s not yours. You’re not the person who’s building the thing.”
Howard recalled how her father had taken on the emotional toll of a few failed movies while she was growing up, adding, “It blows him away that I don’t do that.” However, Howard has growing directorial aspirations, and she expects her assumption of emotional distance to come back and bite her as soon as she directs a mainstream movie.
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“When I ultimately direct a narrative feature, I’m gonna want to work with a director of photography who’s really experienced, because I don’t want to be the most experienced person on a set,” she said. “I really shouldn’t be.”
Howard’s experience will be hard to surpass in some areas. Now 44 years old, she began acting at a young age, but her parents intentionally kept her away from Hollywood to avoid the pitfalls of childhood stardom. Howard made her film debut in 2004 in Shyamalan’s thriller The Village, and she eagerly joined him for his next project, Lady in the Water.
Howard played a nymph-like being named Story in the movie — a supernatural creature that spontaneously appeared one night in an apartment complex swimming pool. She has come to fulfill a prophecy, chased by other mythological creatures from another world. Critics found the premise to be too silly for the movie’s serious, “pretentious” tone, and moviegoers did not turn out to see it in the first place.
Thankfully, both Shyamalan and Howard weathered that failure and have continued to grace us with great movies. For those curious, Lady in the Water is available to digitally rent or purchase on PVOD stores, but it is not on any subscription-based streaming platforms at the time of this writing.
