Backstage Pass: On Set With Austin Butler, Michelle Yeoh, and More

Warner Bros.

Baz Luhrmann, cinema’s reigning maximalist, films constantly during preproduction. “In Elvis, half the screen tests are in the movie,” he says. “My office is always built like a set in case we have to shoot something.” It helped that his star, Austin Butler, was always in character. “For two and a half years,” Luhrmann says, “I never knew anyone but Elvis.” —Yohana Desta

Paramount

The Hollywood tale is told through the eyes of Diego Calva’s wide-eyed Manny. “He was going through a very similar experience to the character he was playing,” says director Damien Chazelle. “Just stumbling on a larger-than-life campus and going, ‘What the fuck is going on?’ ” —Rebecca Ford

Searchlight

This is the first feature Martin McDonagh has filmed in his beloved Ireland, which helps explain why it’s far and away his most visually striking movie. “I wanted it to be as beautiful as possible—to aim for beauty and for cinema,” says the writer-director. “Because if you heard of a story of two guys grumbling at each other, and you didn’t have the epic kind of beauty, it might get a little tiresome.” —David Canfield

Courtesy of Merie Weismiller Wallace/Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment.

Universal

Steven Spielberg says he felt a sense of release on the set of the mostly autobiographical movie The Fabelmans, in which Michelle Williams plays a character based on his mother. “This story has a lot to do with the power of forgiveness, and there’s no real enemies or culprits,” he says. “It’s about the choices we make. And it’s also about when we start looking at our parents as people and not as parents any longer.” —Anthony Breznican

Courtesy of Mark Fellman @ 20th Century Studios.

20th Century

Enormous LED screens paired with mirrors helped create the illusion of fire on the ocean’s surface, an analog effect that would be adapted digitally by The Way of Water’s Oscar-nominated visual effects team. For director James Cameron, that verisimilitude was worth the effort: “Our philosophy was, the more we can do real, the better.” —Katey Rich

Paramount

Riding in fighter jets outfitted with six different cameras that they were in charge of turning on and off, the cast of Top Gun: Maverick had an unusual role to play in capturing the film’s dazzling flight photography. Working with his editor, Eddie Hamilton, right there on set, director Joseph Kosinski was able to ensure it all went as planned: “The last thing I wanted to do was end up on a blue screen three months later because we didn’t get it for real.” —KR

A24

When casting The Whale, director Darren Aronofsky told Brendan Fraser he wanted somebody he could reintroduce to the world. Now nominated for his first Oscar for his transformative turn in the drama, Fraser wanted the same thing for himself. “If there’s no risk, then why bother?” he says. “I wanted to disappear into this. My hope was that I would become unrecognizable. I wanted to know what I was capable of.” —DC

Searchlight

Reuniting with director Sam Mendes for their follow-up to the ambitious war epic 1917, cinematographer Roger Deakins faced a whole new set of challenges, from shooting in the real city of Margate on the English coast to capturing a dramatic fireworks show from a movie theater rooftop. “I would say the shooting process of Empire of Light was far more difficult than 1917,” Deakins says. “But hopefully it doesn’t show in the final image.” —KR