Interview: Ron Howard on the indie approach to directing Eden and working with Sydney Sweeney

Across five decades, Ron Howard has won the Academy Award for directing A Beautiful Mind and set box office records with everything from Cocoon to The Da Vinci Code, as well as helming modern classics like Backdraft, Willow, and even playing in the Star Wars universe with Solo. Having helmed big studio productions for years, Howard’s latest film, Eden, is a throwback to the smaller budget productions from his early career. But, unlike those comedies, Eden is a brutal drama based on a shocking true story.

Eden follows the event of 1932 when Heinz (Daniel Bruhl) and Margret Wittmer (Sydney Sweeney) arrive on the island of Floreana in the Galapagos. There, they want to follow in the footsteps of settlers Dr. Friedrich Ritter (Jude Law) and Dora Strauch (Vanessa Kirby), who are isolating themselves from the modern world to come up with a new society. Everything is disrupted when self-proclaimed baroness Eloise Bosquet de Wagner Wehrhorn (Ana de Armas) lands ashore. With infighting and abundant thievery, Eden shows the devolution of a utopian plan into murder and revenge.

I spoke with Ron Howard about directing Eden and how a family trip to the Galapagos Islands showed him the shocking actual events of what happened on Floreana. He also discussed taking a more independent film approach with this movie and how it differs from the films he has directed before. He praised his ensemble cast but was especially impressed by Sydney Sweeney and her talents on screen. Check out the full interview in the embed above.

Eden opens in theaters on August 22nd. Check out our review HERE!

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