Trudie Styler Talks Journey To Directing ‘Up Against It’ & ‘The Reception’ Back-To-Back: “I’m In A Happy Place”

Trudie Styler arrives at the London offices of Maven Screen Media, her joint production company with Celine Rattray, bearing gifts: bottles of organic extra virgin olive oil.

Featuring Styler and husband Sting’s names on the label, they are the last of a batch made from the 2025 olive harvest at Villa Il Palagio, their beloved 16th Century estate in Tuscany.

She is not here to talk about her long love affair with Italy, however, but rather back-to-back directorial feature film credits Up Against It and The Reception as well as her and Rattray’s commitment to championing female-driven storytelling.

London-set romantic comedy Up Against It stars Antonio Banderas and Eva Birthistle as warring divorced couple Alvaro and Saffron, who are forced to reconnect when their only daughter Rose is struck down with cancer, an illness she had previously battled as an infant but has no memory of. It received a buzzy world premiere in Toronto.

The Reception, revolving around a chaotic wedding party and featuring Jeff Daniels, Guy Pearce, Sabrina Impacciatore in the cast, is on the cusp of shooting in Scotland when this interview takes place, with cameras now rolling since late October.

The features, being sold by Beta Cinema at the upcoming AFM, mark the latest chapter in a producing and directing career that began in the early 1990s when then actress Styler came to the conclusion that combining motherhood and repertory theatre or being on set was going to be a tall order, especially with Sting on the road touring.

“I decided to give acting a pause,” she says, revealing that she called Oscar-winning Chariots of Fire producer David Putnam for advice.

“I said, ‘Could we have a meeting, because I want to know something about being a producer, and if I’ve got it in me to be one, and if you think I’ve got it in me to be one’,” she recounts.

“He was my great mentor in how to be a producer and getting IP… he described it as putting pans on stoves,” she says. “It wasn’t a bad concept… it was sort of like when there’s a bit of heat around one project, keep the others simmering, but really go all in for the one that is showing some heat.”

Her first producer credit was 1993 documentary Boys from Brazil, which was sparked by Styler seeing Brazilian transvestites working as prostitutes in the Bois de Boulogne in Paris and then wondering about their back stories.

She tapped John-Paul Davidson to direct. The pair met during a trip to the Amazon in the early days of the Rainforest Fund which Styler co-founded in 1988 with Sting to protect rainforests and their indigenous people. The resulting work would air as part of the BBC’s now defunct documentary Under the Sun strand.

“It got like about 5.5 million people, which I was told was a good number, although it I got castigated by the fourth estate for making something in such poor taste,” says Styler.

Davidson would go on to direct and produce the travel shows of Micheal Palin and Stephen Fry, while the fund has since raised more than $45 million for 300 indigenous driven projects across three continents.

Her next project Moving The Mountain, was directed by Michael Apted (then fresh off 35 Up) and took its title and cue from a book by exiled Chinese student leader Li Lu chronicling China’s 1989 pro-democracy protests and their brutal ending with the Tiananmen Square Massacre.

He had been introduced to Styler by a friend shortly after his arrival in the U.S. in late 1989 after escaping China where he was wanted by the authorities.

“I met him that winter and he’s been in my life ever since,” recounts Styler. “Now he has a big hedge fund company.”

She enlisted Apted as a director after bumping into him on a flight on the way to New Orleans to join Sting in the city.

“I said, ‘Oh, coincidence!” And he said, ‘No, I’ve actually come to see your husband about a project’… I said, ‘Ah well, can I talk to you about my project,’” she recounts.

Styler remains banned from China to this day due to the film, which played a raft of festivals including the Berlinale and won an IDA award.

She would go on to produce a dozen documentary and fiction features under her Xingu Films banner, named after Xingu Park in Brazil, before going on to launch Maven with Rattray in 2011.

Styler also earned kudos for her championing of emerging directors, with Xingu Films getting behind Guy Ritchie’s 1998 breakout first feature Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and follow-up Snatch (2000), as well as Duncan Jones’ Bafta-winning debut Moon (2009), for which she was also Bafta nominated, among others.

She recalls being approached by Ritchie’s then rookie producer Matthew Vaughn, who knocked on the door of her home out of the blue.

“Matthew had the native wit and charm and the brain to be able to manifest pretty much what he wanted. He said, ‘I want you to meet Guy. He wants to meet you. By the way, you know his father’, and I was like ‘I do?’”.

She discovered that Guy Ritchie’s father is John Ritchie, the advertising exec known for producing the iconic “Happiness a cigar called Hamlet” ads, who she had convinced to create a campaign for the Rainforest Fund.

“When I met Guy, and he asked, ‘So what did you think of my script?’ I replied, ‘Even if I thought it was really stupid, I would have done this to help you because your dad helped me’,” recalls Styler, suggesting that what Vaughn and Ritchie lacked in experience they made up for in chutzpah. “It was a seminal moment… those young bloods were going to do it no matter what.”

Xingu’s filmography also includes Styler’s feature directorial credit on the 2002 documentary Sweatbox, co-directed with Davidson, going behind the scenes at the Walt Disney studios and the making of the animation The Emperor’s New Groove at Disney, in which Sting was involved as chief songwriter.

Styler would break into fiction feature directing in 2018 with Freak Show, an adaptation of James St James’ best-selling novel, starring Bette Midler and Alex Lawther, before returning to documentary in 2023 with Posso Entrare? An Ode To Naples.

Up Against It

She continues to tap into her process as a documentary producer and director for her fiction work. For Up Against It, she spent time with NHS oncologists, notably at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London, in preparation for the film, which hinges around the fact that the best shot at survival for Alvaro and Saffron’s daughter Rose is the conception via IVF of a so-called “saviour sibling” with matching T-cells.

While the premise sounds dark, the film is not, with Styler bringing a celebration of life; love and moving on, while holding on, to the big screen, reminiscent of Working Title classics such as Love Actually or Four Weddings and a Funeral but more complex.

“TIFF was sort of amazing because I wasn’t prepared to have the applause, and people weeping, and also really roaring with laughter… In Up Against it, you do laugh as much as you’re touched and moved… that’s why I love cinema as a shared experience,” she says.

Styler directs from a screenplay by Chloe King, based on an original story by Camille Griffen who wrote a first draft after being inspired by a segment on the NBC’s Today Show.

Citing her research and discussions with oncologists, Styler says that around four saviour siblings were created in Europe last year but that the practice is being superseded by developments in paediatric oncology and CAR T-cell therapy, which uses a patient’s own while blood cells to fight cancer

“I didn’t connect with it through the cancer story as much as that of the couple,” reveals Styler. “The couple split up because of Rose’s cancer. It seemed counterintuitive that you would break up when your child was in desperate need of you both, but then I spoke to oncologists who said that the path to a cure amongst families who have got a long cancer protocol in their lives, often requiring the mum to stay in hospital with the child, can put an enormous strain on the marriage.”

Although the story was born out of a U.S. news item, Styler opted to transpose it to the UK where she has a better grasp of the health system.

“I don’t know enough about it to get into the weeds of what universal medical care is there, but I do know a lot about the NHS, so I thought I’m just on better ground and safer ground,” she says,

With two sisters who worked as nurses, one specialized in intensive care for babies, and the other in women’s health, Styler also has a deep respect for the staff throughout the NHS.

“They’re not paid that well. They do many, many more hours a week than many other professions do… I felt that in the movie it was important to really include them,” she says.

Styler adds it was also a joy to bring London to life on the big screen, describing the film as a love letter to the city, where she was based in the early years of her career as an actress.

“I wanted it to look beautiful and diverse… it’s full of so many nations. And at its best, I think it’s a glorious city,” she says. “Because I don’t live here all the time now, I think I have a great nostalgia for it, and all it gave me when I was 18, 19, and I started to live my life as an actor, and that’s all I’d ever wanted to be.”

“Through my kind of rose-tinted eyes, it’s the city that really gave me the love of arts that I have. I remember going to see Ian McKellen and Judi Dench in their Macbeth at the Donmar Warehouse and how brilliant and simple it was,” she continues.

“My agent at the time, Elspeth Cochrane, was Ian’s agent. She managed to purloin me a ticket and when I saw that, ‘I was like, oh God, I really want to be at the RSC and do this.”

The cast and crew for Up Against It taps into Styler’s network built over her 50-year career and life on the celebrity circuit with Sting.

“I knew Antonio in the 1990s when he was married to Melanie [Griffith]. Then for a long time, our paths did not cross. I was living in New York, and he came to live in England for a bit,” she says of her connection with Banderas.

“I’d been thinking who could play Alvaro because he’s not to everybody’s taste with his sexist remarks… somehow Banderas is one of those transcendent actors in that whatever he does, he remains lovable.”

She recounts how a month after she sent the screenplay to his agent Manny Nunez, the actor requested a Zoom call in which he said he loved the part but requested one tweak.

“He said, ‘I really love the script, but what I cannot be is a barrister called Peter.’ I said, ‘Of course, we will tailor make it to you,” she recalls, with Peter then becoming larger-than-life conductor Alvaro.

Further cast include Úrsula Corberó (Money Heist) and Arinzé Kene (The Pass, Lee), as Alvaro and Saffron’s new partners, who become unwitting peacekeepers in the IVF process overseen by the real-life Human Embryology Authority, as well as Forest Whitaker, as NHS oncologist Doctor Augustus Abara, with Richard E. Grant, Mickey Sumner and Selana Tan also putting in appearances. Eden Hamilton (The Railway Children Return) plays Rose.

Styler’s connections with Whitaker go back to 2013, when she was a coproducer on Christmas musical A Black Nativity, in which he co-starred alongside Angela Bassett and Jennifer Hudson, with the film shooting on location in New York’s Saint John the Divine cathedral.

When Whitaker revealed he was not happy with his hotel, Styler invited him to stay at her New York apartment instead.

“He said, ‘I never do that kind of thing.’ I said, ‘Well, the offer’s there.’ Later in the day, he asked, “Are you serious about me coming to stay at your apartment? I’d be really quiet.” I said, ‘Forest, it’s not a small apartment. There’s plenty of room’. My kids had gone to college, or they were working elsewhere… and Sting was on the road. I said, ‘It would be lovely to have your company’. We’ve called each other roomie ever since,” she recounts.

After accepting the Up Against It role, Whitaker requested time with an oncologist for a briefing on Rose’s treatment to understand the real-life protocols around treating cancer.

Styler’s award-winning crew, featuring editor Walter Fasano (Call Me By Your Name), Dante Spinotti (Heat, L.A. Confidential) and late multi-Oscar nominated Ghandi and Blue Planet composer George Fenton, is also the fruit of long connections.

She has known Spinotti since the 1980s, working with him on films such as Mario Orfini’s Cinecittà-shot 1988 film Fair Game (Mamba), in which she starred as a woman locked in an apartment with a deadly snake by her deranged computer scientist husband. He previously worked on Freak Show and Posso Entrare? and is also the cinematographer for The Reception.

The interview takes place just days after Fenton’s unexpected death at age 76 in early October. Styler is caught off guard by the mention of his name and looks visibly pained by the thought of his passing, with the interview pausing momentarily.

Styler, who is still reeling from his death, explains her friendship with Fenton goes back to a 1978 theatrical production of Hamlet at the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry in which she played Ophelia and he oversaw the music.

“I was 23… He wrote my songs for Ophelia and through the years we just sort of ran into each other, and then this year I had nine months with him, composing that very beautiful score, seeing so much of him, and it’s like we recaptured those days in 1978, I think it was just before he did Gandhi.”

“Spending those nine months with him was a sheer pleasure and also did a lot for my confidence, with him encouraging me and saying, ‘When you played Ophelia, I came to your first night. I thought it was a really stunning performance, and now you’re a director. You go on and direct as much as you want because you’re good.’”

Maven & Backing Female Driven Storytelling

While revelling in her time behind the camera, Styler remains committed to Screen Media, her joint female focused banner with Rattray. Launched in New York in 2011, with offices in London, the company moved its main base to the UK capital in 2025.

When Rattray first approached Styler in New York with the idea of working together, she had been mulling a move back into acting despite the then recent success of Moon.

“She said, ‘Well, have a think about it’, and I said, ‘If we do it, it’s going to be something that’s niche and focuses on something missing in the film industry… what’s missing?’ We both look at each other and go, ‘Us?’”

“Seventeen years later, here we are, making films that have pushed the needle on women in film above and below the line, and we’re very proud of what we’ve done.”

The slate to date has included Andrea Arnold’s American Honey (2016) as well as Sundance prizes winners Novitiate by Maggie Betts and The Kindergarten Teacher by Sara Colangelo, with more recent credits including Scarlett Johansson’s Cannes-selected Eleanor The Great, Gurinder Chadha’s Christmas Karma, and Katie Holmes’ romantic comedy Happy Hours, which debuted in Tribeca in June.

Men are not excluded with the company also getting pictures such as Guy Nattiv’s’s Skin (2018) and Mark Meyers’ Human Capital (2019).

Styler cites figures collated by the Center for the Study of Women In Television and Film for the top 100 grossing U.S. films of 2025 showing that women accounted for 26% of producers, 20% of editors, 20% of writers and 11% of directors.

“Since we’ve been more based in the UK, 90% of our films have been female directed,” she says proudly, highlighting the contrast.

Additionally, 80% of Maven’s films since 2020 have had women in the leading role, while 70% were written by women.

Styler acknowledges that it remains an uphill battle for women to achieve gender parity in the film and TV industries, says she remains optimistic for the future.

“I do feel that the demographics are behind us. When I look at my grandchildren, we’ve got eight. I see that they are incredibly well informed, and they are no pushovers. And I do think it will get keep getting better and that storytelling will be more female driven,” she says.

“I have to think like that because the alternative is to give up and retire and swing in a hammock or something, but I don’t have that in me. I’ve got lots of energy, and I love doing what I’m doing. I’m a grandmother, and I’m 72… I feel it’s my time to do what I want, and I’m really not afraid of saying what I think to anybody about this situation.”

“Celine and I will continue to push on female-driven stories written by women, with women cinematographers… and wherever we can populate the films with diversity and women we will do it because the industry needs it and the world needs it. We need narratives that are more balanced. Otherwise, we are telling so many male action movies that really don’t have a beating heart.”

On her own personal journey as a director, she says it is too early to say what comes next after Up Against It and The Reception, but admits she is in her element right now.

“I don’t know now how many more films I’ll direct. Antonio said to me, ‘You seem so peaceful when you’re directing, the set’s so quiet, you never raise your voice.’ It’s because I’m actually in a happy place with myself and I’m so grateful to all these collaborators that are part of this.”