Bill Hader has always wanted to direct a feature film. It just took him a while to get to it.
“That was the dream forever. I just took the most circuitous way to get there,” said Hader. Then he said, “I think Kurosawa did that? Didn’t he go to a sketch comedy show for eight years? Wasn’t he in ‘Trainwreck’?”
After a long stint on “Saturday Night Live”, starring in several films and co-creating his own HBO series “Barry”, Hader finally won directing his own film, “They Know”. In a one-on-one chat called “What No One Tells You About Directing Your First Feature,” Hader unpacked just that for the audience at IndieWire’s Future of Filmmaking 2026 Summit presented by AT&T in Los Angeles on Saturday.
With “They Know,” Hader is the latest comedic talent to jump into the horror genre. As he did on “Barry,” Hader is writing, directing and acting in the feature. He stars as a divorced father who begins to suspect that his wife’s secret partner is exerting an unnatural influence on his children. The MRC-produced film, which also stars Linda Cardellini, returned to filming in May and is currently in the sound mixing stage and preparing to be presented to distributors.
Hader shared that the premise of the film came from personal conversations he had with his longtime collaborator and writing partner, Duffy Boudreau.
“We’re both divorced. We were talking about how lucky we were to be on, like, we were on really good terms with our ex-wives, and we have kids with them,” Hader told Chris O’Falt, IndieWire’s VP of strategy features and host of the Filmmaker Toolkit podcast. “We started talking about the worst-case scenarios of, ‘Oh, my god, this person is going through this and this person is going through that.’ And then this idea came up. ”
While keeping plot details vague, Hader admitted that he “kind of gave up” on the film for a while, because the ending of each version felt “like every other horror movie”. But a strange new message in 2025, about the unsavory world of online scalpers, sent him back to the project.
“I went to Nuart [Theater] by myself and I saw the movie ‘Cloud,’ by Kiyoshi Kurosawa,” he said. “And, [my movie] there is nothing like that movie. But, for some reason, I saw that movie and I walked out and I was like, ‘I think I know how to do it.’ You’d never see this movie and think ‘Cloud,’ but that’s where it is. “
A special project has been long in the works for Hader, one of the most prominent cinematographers to emerge from the cast of “SNL.” (Look up second visit the Criterion Closet, in which he draws 15 great titles – including “A Man Escaped,” Robert Bresson’s “Salvatore Giuliano” and the Allan King box set.) After directing several episodes of “Barry” – and winning a Directors Guild of America award in 2019 for the series – a push into feature filmmaking seems likely for several years.
Even so, Hader insists he carried some self-doubt going into the project, something he’s carried over from his sketch comedy days.
“‘SNL’ helped with that. You’d just get shot down all the time. It was terrible,” Hader said with a laugh. “But, in doing that, you’re acting on instinct.”
That healthy fear helped Hader foster collaborative conversations throughout the filmmaking process, whether he was testing the looks of different lenses on location scouts or talking through his shot lists with his editor in pre-production.
“The doubt is always there. And that’s good though. If you’re not scared, you’re frustrated,” Hader said. “I met someone who worked with him [Martin] Scorsese. He said the best thing about it was that he would start a day and go, ‘I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know what this is.’ And that’s just salvation. … We are all afraid. The worst thing is when people come in like, ‘I know What is up.’ And within five minutes you’re like, ‘The director doesn’t know what they’re doing.'”
Hader returned to the feeling in the home stretch of the conversation, reinforcing the takeaway for the crowd.
“Don’t be afraid to be wrong. That’s what got me fired. I was afraid of looking like an idiot,” he said. “Be wrong as fast as you can be. Like, this is all wrong, but it doesn’t matter. We’re just going. We’re going to be okay. Just keep moving.”
Along with Hader’s presentation “What No One Tell You About Directing Your First Feature,” the IndieWire Future of Filmmaking Summit also included a keynote by directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller, diving into the production of their sci-fi blockbuster “Project Hail Mary,” and an appearance by “Obsession” writer/director Curry Barker, who received an IndieWire Award for Filmmaking.
IndieWire Future of Filmmaking Summit 2026 is presented by AT&T Untold Stories, an award-winning multi-year collaboration between AT&T and the Tribeca Festival that provides $1.2 million dollars, mentorship, and extensive support to the next generation of filmmakers who want to bring their films to the big screen. For more information, visit here.