Niki Caro is forging a bold new path through Hollywood. In an exclusive interview, the New Zealand film-maker of Whale Rider fame discusses her latest action thriller, The Mother, starring J.Lo as a deadly assassin.
Picture a mum on the big screen and a wholesome, non-threatening image likely springs to
“So frequently you have mothers in the kitchen,” agrees New Zealand film director Niki Caro, Zooming from LA. “Or driving other people around, an appendage to a more interesting character.”
In her new action-thriller, The Mother, screening on Netflix from Mother’s Day, the maternal (or in this case, not so maternal) figure is the film’s raison d’etre. A very athletic Jennifer Lopez, 53, plays a nameless assassin, whose instinct to protect the daughter she was unable to raise herself sees her flex violent survival skills. Cue heart-thumping scenes in which she must outwit and fight a series of bad men (Joseph Fiennes, Gael Garcia Bernal) from Alaska to the US and Cuba.
It’s a pacy revenge-thriller in the spirit of Taken that rewrites expectations of its genre, something the director has been doing since helming the live-action film Mulan.
“It’s not about plugging a female actress into a male action role,” says Niki. “It’s actually putting a complex woman into that world, [and asking], What does that mean?”
The Mother marks yet another accomplishment on the world stage for the Kiwi director, whose string of big-budget films has cemented her as a power player in Hollywood, a visionary fascinated by strong female characters.
Since her beloved global hit Whale Rider in 2002, a film she says still makes people “lose their shit” when they find out she was behind it, she has gone on to direct a string of hits that marry grand storylines with deep emotion: notably North Country, The Vintner’s Luck, The Zookeeper’s Wife and Disney’s Mulan (the live-action reimagining of the ancient, later animated tale).
“My favourite combination is epic and intimate,” says Niki. “Although I also like elegant and sneaky.”
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Advertise with NZME.When The Mother script landed on her desk in 2020, she never had any doubt that Jennifer Lopez should play the lead. Back then it had virtually no dialogue and was almost wall-to-wall action. Though Niki would later come to expand the film beyond the page, helping Lopez create a backstory, encouraging the development of dialogue and becoming a vocal proponent to take the film offshore, complete with challenging snowmobile chase scenes, she also says she knew she had to be the one to direct it.
“I had a very strong instinct for it. It’s a big global action movie and I really enjoy action, and working at scale, which I did with Mulan. But it was really the idea of mother as protector, that primal instinct to protect, not to nurture, because she couldn’t nurture her way out of a wet paper bag, this woman. She’s had no nurturing in her own life but what she knows how to do is protect. And I thought that felt like a really urgent story for me to tell.”
A long-time admirer of Lopez, particularly her turn in Steven Soderbergh’s Out of Sight, Niki acknowledges the star hasn’t always had the chance to show her range through her roles in lighter romantic films. Pushing her to extremes in The Mother — a film in which romance is hinted at rather than used as a trope — meant working with the star’s physical strengths, her skill and precision as a dancer and performer.
Considering J.Lo’s A-type qualities — many of which are revealed in Halftime, her own documentary on Netflix — it’d be tempting to imagine she likes to be the one in charge on set, particularly given she’s a producer on the film too.
Not the case, says Niki.
“It was a wonderful, collaborative relationship. She’s very, very open to direction. We had similar instincts around the material. We’ve both got junior teenage children so there was a lot in there for both of us to tap into. She’s extremely intelligent. And skilled, obviously. And very, very focused and organised. She would come to set to work and she would know all her lines, and we would block the scene and we would shoot the scene. And it’s exactly the way I work. Very well prepared, get there, totally focused, ready to execute. I think in some ways it’s because we are mothers and we don’t have a lot of time to piss around.”
Niki has exacting standards for everyone on set. Despite her easygoing nature and her obvious charisma and warmth, even during a relatively short Zoom call, it’s not unusual for people to underestimate her. There are few other women who’ve helmed a movie with a budget of more than US$100m, and while Niki laughs there’s plenty of room for more, she’s not so lighthearted about the rigours of the role.
“I was quite adamant that our second unit teams and our stunt performers rise to a very high bar,” she says. “There is sometimes, I think, a tendency when you’re a female that you’re going to be soft or a bit more compliant, that you’re not going to want the biggest and the best and the most robust. So I fight that all the time.”
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Advertise with NZME.When asked how she became one of the few women to reach such success in her industry, she quotes Sir Edmund Hillary, who once said he epitomised the average New Zealander: “I have modest abilities, I combine these with a good deal of determination, and I rather like to succeed.”
And it’s her Kiwi roots that she likes to think are responsible for developing the attributes required to do what she does.
“There’s that New Zealand egalitarianism, that you can talk to anybody and connect with anybody. And as New Zealanders we’ve historically punched above our weight. I’m talking about the All Blacks — and all our sporting teams.” (Eagle-eyed viewers will no doubt spot the New Zealand flag hanging proudly in an airport scene in the film, just as they might spot that fellow Kiwi Liz Tan is credited as an assistant director.)
Then there’s Oscar-winning New Zealand director Jane Campion, whom Niki calls “the Holy Grail” in terms of inspiration, someone who, along with the likes of Martin Scorsese, she greatly admired as she embarked on her own career. As for her family’s influence, Niki says her own mother was quite bemused by her daughter’s choice of vocation.
“She could probably see how tough it was at the beginning when you’re trying to learn. Maybe a part of her thought I may have had a much easier life if I’d worked in a bank. But temperamentally, I’m not suited to a bank. I can’t think of myself doing anything else other than making movies. This is my happy place.”
‘The Mother’ screens on Netflix from Mother’s Day, this Sunday, May 14.
