‘The Zone of Interest’ Mastermind Jonathan Glazer Has Quite the Pop Culture Bragging Rights

If Jonathan Glazer wasn’t already on your radar courtesy of Sexy Beast, Birth, and Under the Skin, that’s hopefully changed by now.

Indeed, with Glazer’s latest film, The Zone of Interest, having nabbed five Oscar nominations earlier this year (including Best Picture, which it could very well come from behind to win), the longtime cinematic powerhouse has garnered a whole new round of respect and visibility, which will hopefully lead to his next feature appearing in more theaters when the time comes.

In saying that, it’s hard to imagine Glazer ditching his methodical profundity for the sake of making a splash at the box office, so it’s all the more surprising that the filmmaker is the only person in the world capable of making one of the most impressive statements in the entire pop culture zeitgeist.

Speaking to Alfonso Cuarón in a pre-screening interview about The Zone of Interest at London’s BFI Southbank theater last week (per Deadline), Glazer revealed the curious fact that he was the first kid in the United Kingdom to have watched Star Wars, recounting the details from his childhood.

“… my dad designed TV Times, which was a listings magazine, many years ago. He got a ticket to see this new film, Star Wars, and he took me along. I was 12 years old or something. I remembered looking around. It was all adults. I was the only kid there. That was the first and only screening, so I was the first kid in London to see it.”

The kicker? The young Glazer didn’t care for George Lucas’ sci-fi behemoth one bit”

“The other thing [I remember] is, I hated it. I mean, I know Star Wars fans are militant in their love of it, and I respect that, but I got nothing from it, weirdly. And, as a 12-year-old, you would’ve thought I would.”

Looking at what Glazer has made over the course of his career, it’s perhaps no surprise that he wasn’t all that privy to Star Wars’ cheesy genre stylings as other kids his age may have been. And since that’s led us to the likes of The Zone of Interest and whatever will follow, we can safely chalk that up as a good omen.

(featured image: A24)