Kitchener's Chris Williams hopes to strike Oscar gold again with film The Sea Beast
CBC
Growing up in Kitchener, Ont., Oscar-nominated director Chris Williams loved Raiders of the Lost Arc.
He said the movie was "a big lightning bolt moment" that made him realize he wanted to make movies himself.
"I was old enough to appreciate that adults made this thing and they obviously were really passionate about this material. You could just feel it on the screen," he said.
"It occurred to me that ... it was OK to grow up and not let go of all the things that you love as a kid."
Williams had worked on some of the most beloved children's films over the last three decades — Mulan, Lilo & Stitch, Frozen and Big Hero 6 are just some of the projects he worked on in his 25 year career at Disney.
Now Williams is off the the Oscars on Sunday for Netflix's The Sea Beast.
The films Williams has worked on have won Oscars before, but The Sea Beast is different because it's the first one he's written, directed and produced.
Anyone hoping for any local references in the film will be disappointed, he said.
Williams went to the Princess Twin Cinemas in Waterloo for a screening of the film in early February, which is when he spoke to CBC Kitchener-Waterloo.
He said he visited his old school, Bridgeport Public School in Kitchener, while he was in town. It was during a particularly cold spell and it was snowing.
"I was driving in almost white out snow and when I think about those conditions versus the experience of The Sea Beast, where they're all blue skies and the wide open sea and this sort of fantasy, fantastic world set, you know, in some sort of version of the 1600s and 1700s, it's hard to see a ton of correlation there," he said.
The movie has a 94 per cent rating on film review website Rotten Tomatoes and Williams said The Sea Beast "really connected with audiences."
"The fact that it was received well by critics and all that stuff, that actually felt really good," he said.
LISTEN | Extended interview: Chris Williams, director of Oscar-nominated The Sea Beast:
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