James Gray on Family Loss, Tenderness, and 'Paper Tiger' at Locarno
Filmmaker James Gray accepted the Pardo alla Carriera — Locarno's career achievement honour — at the 79th Locarno Film Festival on 9 August, then spoke candidly about the family rupture that shaped his newest film.
Gray's Paper Tiger, which he wrote and directed, stars Adam Driver, Scarlett Johansson, and Miles Teller. It screened in Locarno's 8,000-capacity Piazza Grande as an open-air presentation tied to the tribute, with a North American premiere to follow (Variety, Deadline). The film is, in Gray's words, "autographically inspired" by his family.
At a reporter roundtable where The Hollywood Reporter was present, Gray described the period that destroyed his family unit. Within two months, he went off to college, his brother moved out, his father got into legal trouble, and his mother died. She had glioblastoma — an aggressive brain cancer — the same illness given to Scarlett Johansson's character in Paper Tiger (The Hollywood Reporter).
Gray also spoke about the personal cost of stability. He called his wife "fantastic" and his children "great," then added that a content home life is "not very good for drama" — a wry acknowledgement that creative work often feeds on fracture rather than calm.
The conversation turned wider when Gray addressed what he sees as a constraint placed on men, both in life and on screen. He said men are "really not allowed to engage with the tender side, the feminine side, love" (The Hollywood Reporter). The comment, delivered during a festival roundtable, connected the emotional register of Paper Tiger to a broader argument about what stories men are permitted to tell.
Gray is no stranger to the awards circuit. He previously told his wife he would receive an honour at Locarno, a remark recounted during a Hollywood Reporter director roundtable in 2017. His fellow roundtable appearances over the years have placed him alongside names like Oliver Hirschbiegel, Atom Egoyan, and Jonathan Teplitzky — a recurring presence in conversations about independent and international cinema.
The Locarno Film Festival, held annually in the Swiss lakeside town, is one of the longest-running film festivals in the world. The Pardo alla Carriera — literally "Career Leopard" — recognises a body of work rather than a single title. This year's edition was presented by My Ascona-Locarno.
For Gray, the honour arrived alongside his most personal film. Paper Tiger draws directly from the collapse he lived through as a young man, translating a mother's illness and a family's disintegration into a drama led by three of Hollywood's most bankable performers.
