Bryce Dallas Howard Dissects the Power and Evolution of Fatherhood Apple TV+ Documentary – Parade

Jurassic World and Rocketman starBryce Dallas Howard, 39, goes behind the camera to direct the documentary Dads (June 19 on Apple TV+) about modern fatherhood around the world. She taps her own filmmaking father, Ron Howard, as well as other famous funny dads, including Will Smith, Jimmy Fallon, Ken Jeong, Jimmy Kimmel and Conan OBrien.

Related:Bryce Dallas Howard and Ron Howard Have the Sweetest Father-Daughter Pics

Is the theme of Dads that there isnt one definition of what a father is today?

Absolutely. Fatherhood has gone through a huge evolution just in the last generation.

What advice did your father give you on making Dads?

He was very nervous about me putting him on a pedestal. Hes like, Everyones going to be annoyed by a movie thats just a daughter celebrating her father. I kept assuring him, Trust me, theres much more exciting stories in there. Ultimately when he watched it, he was like, Oh, OK, but he still felt it was too much of him.

What was your inspiration for Dads?

Ive got great, strong, essential relationships with the men in my life: my grandfather, my brother, my husband and my husbands best friend, whos the godfather of my children. All of them are astonishing fathers. I felt its impossible to not notice how in the past men have been left out of the conversation of parenting. Its been a very diminished role.

What topics did the comedian dads address?

A lot of the questions that I had for our comedian dads were about themselves as fathers, but also what their experience was like being fathered, what theyve consciously changed, and what they have unconsciously not been able to change. Its very apparent that generationally, for many, theres been a huge transformation as to what the role of a father is.

Your film is a positive look at fatherhood.

I just saw again and again, men who went above and beyond for their families, and were all in. I wanted to celebrate that. I wanted to celebrate the men who are fathers who are all in, because there are so many more of them than there are deadbeat dads, truly. What weve seen in the movies and on TV, and all of that, is a lot of depictions of fathers who are incompetent, and thats just not what I have experienced, and thats not what I have witnessed and observed.

You have quite a Rolodex of comedian dads. Were they eager to volunteer or did you have to coax some of them into doing it?

Honestly, everyone was really enthusiastic. I think in part its because these are all very devoted, wonderful, present fathers. And at the end of each of the conversations, what I heard more than any other statement was, Oh, my gosh, I have never been asked that much about what it takes, what it feels like to be a parent, to be a father. And for women, before you even think about becoming a mother people ask you, What do you think youre going to be like as a mother?

Ive seen people talk to my 3-year-old daughter about being a mother one day, saying, Oh, shell be such a great mother. And so, it was really interesting for me as a woman and as a mother to feel the difference of what I had come to expect and assume was normal. And then to learn, Oh, wow, an hour or two-hour conversation about fathering is something that isnt necessarily happening. Why? Its not out of lack of interest.

This was definitely a family affair. Your dad, your brother and your grandfather were all in it. Whats it like working with family?

Its wonderful. My brother, Reed, is so sweet and he keeps talking about it. He keeps being like, I just loved getting to do the interview with you. It was so nice. We just got to talk without being interrupted. Im the oldest and hes the youngest, and theres a set of twins between us, so, it was just great to get to be one-on-one.

My grandfather, actually, when I started the movie he had passed away. The interview with him was done in 2013. So that was something when I was first thinking about it, I was like, Oh, weve got our birth videos and maybe, Dad, you could talk about granddad. And he was like, No, no, no, no.

And then as we started filming, I kept wanting to ask an expecting father to be one of our hero dads. Someone who wasnt a father yet and becomes a father through the course of filming. Then my brother and his wife got pregnant, and so, it was this totally serendipitous thing. They actually werent even trying.

I was like, Oh, my gosh, will you be my expecting dad? My brother said yes, and then it made sense to include my grandfathers story, so I went and looked at that old interview. And then it made sense for me to interview my own dad. So it was something that happened very organically in regard to my grandfather and my brother. And with my dad, it was a little bit of arm-twisting.

Does directing come naturally to you? And if so, what do you enjoy about it?

Directing has always been something that I aspired to do as a part of my career. Absolutely. In terms of whether or not it comes naturally, what I would say is that its a little bit like asking someone who grew up in a household where Spanish was the first language, did Spanish come more naturally to you? Yes, its easier to learn Spanish because its being spoken around them. And for me, I was raised on movie sets and within that environment, and so Im relatively fluent in movie, movie speak, and what that experience is like.

In fact, I teach a class now at NYU. Its a filmmaking class, and its a class where students are creating their own work. But a big aspect of the class, other than generating ones own work, is understanding the film environment, how films are made and what its like on a set. When I left school and I started working, it didnt throw me at all to be on a movie set. I really understood the dynamics, the rules, the lingo, the cameras and the workflow. A lot of my peers, because they didnt grow up in that way, that was a new experience. And I was like, Oh, wow, that was a real privilege. Ive always known it. It was just getting exposed.

Its the same thing, again, with language. If you want to learn a language, the younger you are when youre exposed to it, its going to come more naturally to you. So thats something that was really, really, really lucky. But I was also always interested, so I was always paying attention. And then when I was in high school, I started directing plays, and I did that all through college.

I directed my first short film [Orchids] when I was pregnant with my oldest [Theo], whos now 13. That was a short film that I co-wrote with the gentleman who became my brother-in-law later. It starred Katherine Waterston, who I went to NYU with, and Alfred Molina, who did me a great favor in saying yes to it.

And then my second film [When You Find Me] was when I was pregnant with my second kid [daughter Beatrice, 8]. Certainly, when the acting career kicked off, directing slowed down for a while for sure. And then after the second kid, its been pretty consistent.

How did you pick the noncelebritydads? Did you actually go to Brazil and Japan and film those segments?

Great question. The way we picked the dads was so fun and intentional, but then also there were little random surprises as well. Basically, early on, I was really fascinated with the daddy blogger community, because that was something thats very new. It couldnt have existed before social media and all of that. And so, our first stop was in the daddy blogger community, and it took all of two seconds to find Glen Beleaf Henry, who is just so charismatic and such an incredible inspiration, witty, dynamic and just your dream come true as a documentary filmmaker.

And so, continuing to explore within that community, that led us to Rob and Reece Scheer. Rob had just written a book that had been published. Shuichi was discovered quite coincidentally by one of our producers, who saw a comic book that had been written about him, with him on his bicycle, biking with his son through Tokyo, Japan. And so, thats how he was discovered.

So it was a one-at-a-time thing. I did a lot of work with the Promundo Institute in Brazil. Brazil is where Thiagos from, and hes done work with the institute as well on nonviolent communication and active present fathering and whatnot. So it was something where once we went into the daddy blogger community, it felt like there were so many amazing folks. It wasnt like, Where are we possibly going to find these dads? It was like they were everywhere.

We also really wanted footage, because scheduling-wise we had a pretty small window in order to do everything. And so, I was hoping that we could piggyback on footage that had already been captured by the fathers themselves, because with a documentary, typically it takes forever because youre just sitting down and youre like, OK, eventually the lion will move. Something will happen eventually, just park here.

Whereas with this, in terms of actually going and shooting the hero dads, it was a very small crew, it was a handful of days in and out, especially to not disrupt the family lifestyle because there were kids involved. And so, having characters who had a lot of their own footage that we could use was really, really helpful.

In terms of going to Japan, very sadly but very intentionally, I did not go to Japan to shoot, and I didnt shoot in the homes of the families, because Jurassic World 2 had just come out, and those kids are literally my demographic and I was nervous. This is such a weird thing to say, but I was really nervous that if the kids recognized me, or if it made the parents nervous to be like, Oh, I recognize her, it can ruin the vibe.

It was a targeted thing. The stuff with my brother, and, of course, all the comedian stuff, I shot myself. But the traveling to some of those places, its so sad that I didnt get to go, but it had to be that way.

Because your film is about dads, how is the parenting in your family? Your husband [Seth Gabel, 38] is an actor, so do you have a rule that you have to juggle work so that one of you is always with the kids?

No. That happens on its own. Whatever it might seem on the outside, neither my husband nor I have ever felt like weve been in the position to make those choices. When were not working, its not because were choosing to not work, its because were literally unemployed.

That being said, with the choosing not to work, there are certain things. You dont just sign up for everything because, Oh, theres a local position at the community theater down the road. Im available, Im going to go do it. There is still discernment, but were always auditioning, were always interviewing for jobs. Unless Im on maternity leave or something, Im saying, Im available. Or, Im doing another job.

So its worked out that way. I can only think of two instances for a day or two where it was like, Oh, my gosh, what are we going to do? But its definitely worked out. Early on there was a period of time where my husband was on a few TV shows that were shot out of the country, and my daughter ended up being born in Canada as a result. I was mostly just with the kids, but I was also very pregnant, so it wasnt like I was going to be working during that time anyways.

Jurassic World: Dominion is coming up next year. Are you surprised that there are still Jurassic stories to tell?

Im not, because Im a sci-fi nerd who cant get enough sci-fi. Its just an endless curiosity. What author Michael Crichton created with Jurassic Park is this alternate reality: What would happen if we were able to reanimate dinosaurs? Its a really fun, delicious, wild thought experiment.

Related:Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard Talk Dinosaurs, Parenting and Friendship

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Bryce Dallas Howard Dissects the Power and Evolution of Fatherhood Apple TV+ Documentary - Parade