\n<\/p>\n
Before her directorial debut, Don\u2019t Let\u2019s Go to the Dogs Tonight<\/em>, premiered in Telluride late on Friday night, Embeth Davidtz<\/strong> was asked whether she wanted to see the reviews on the other side\u2014both the good and the bad. Without hesitating, she replied in the affirmative.<\/p>\n The morning after, sitting outside a bustling cafe on Colorado Ave., the actress-turned-filmmaker rounds up the responses. First, what she read last night: \u201cSome blogger gave it a 1.5 out of 5 and said, \u2018Can\u2019t stand this little colonial cutesy child,\u2019 so I was like, \u2018Oh, good God, here we go.\u2019\u201d But the next morning, Davidtz woke up to strong reviews. \u201cI can\u2019t believe it,\u201d she says of a Hollywood Reporter<\/em> rave<\/a>. \u201cAnd this guy from AwardsWatch\u2014I don\u2019t know what that is\u2014he really got it, and gave it a B+<\/a>.\u201d It\u2019s a lot to take in, but Davidtz is reading everything<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m educating myself,\u201d she tells me after ordering a decaf coffee. \u201cMaybe if I was a seasoned filmmaker, I wouldn\u2019t. It\u2019s hard on the heart, but I feel like if I didn\u2019t listen, then I wouldn\u2019t be opening myself up to the feedback. You\u2019re pretty much bearing your soul and then letting people stab you in the heart or be kind to you. But I feel at least this time in my life, I have to hear it all.\u201d<\/p>\n Until Don\u2019t Let\u2019s Go<\/em>, Davidtz didn\u2019t have any screen producing, writing, or directing credits to her name. She\u2019s been a film and TV actress for more than 30 years, breaking out in big-screen hits like Schindler\u2019s List<\/em> and Matilda<\/em> before, more recently, emerging as a kind of prestige-TV utility player, recurring in the likes of In Treatment<\/em>, Mad Men<\/em>, Ray Donovan<\/em>, and The Morning Show<\/em>. Although born in Indiana, she was mostly raised in South Africa to South African parents, and felt like an outsider in Hollywood. Over the years, once stardom eluded her, she found it difficult to land satisfying parts. \u201cI\u2019m so much less interested in acting these days\u2014it\u2019s been a long time coming,\u201d she tells me. \u201cI don\u2019t love acting anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n She never thought of directing instead. She never told herself, as she phrases it now, \u201cI\u2019m allowed to do that.\u201d Even her interest in developing an adaptation of Alexandra Fuller<\/strong>\u2019s best-selling memoir Don\u2019t Let\u2019s Go to the Dogs Tonight<\/em>, about growing up in the Rhodesian civil war through to the establishment of Zimbabwe, had to do with acting. She saw an opportunity to play an actual great role as Fuller\u2019s volatile mother, Nicola.<\/p>\n \u201cI couldn’t find someone to write it\u2014I waited and waited and waited, I looked and looked, but nobody understood the material,\u201d she says. So over two years, Davidtz wrote the script herself. Then she couldn\u2019t find a director; her husband, the entertainment lawyer Jason Sloane,<\/strong> suggested she helm the film herself. \u201cAt that point I thought, \u2018Shit, I wish I could find someone else to play Nicola.\u201d Davidtz sent the book to agents to help recast the role. She never heard back.<\/p>\n \u201cThen I was like, \u2018Okay, fuck it,\u2019\u201d Davidtz says. \u201cI\u2019m going to direct it and<\/em> I\u2019m going to be in it.\u201d<\/p>\n