Bill Hader always wanted to direct a feature film. It just took him a while to reach this point.
“That was a forever dream. I took the most circuitous route to get there,” Haider said. Then he said, “I think Kurosawa did that? Didn’t he go on a sketch comedy show for eight years? Wasn’t he in ‘Trainwreck’?”
After a long stint at “Saturday Night Live,” starring roles in several movies and co-creating his own Emmy-winning HBO series “Barry,” Hader finally set out to direct his own film, “They Know.” That’s exactly what Hader revealed to the audience at IndieWire’s Future of Filmmaking 2026 Summit presented by AT&T in Los Angeles on Saturday in a one-on-one conversation titled “What No One Tells You About Your First Feature.”
With “They Know,” Hader is the latest major comedic talent to leap into the horror genre. As he did on “Barry,” Hader writes, directs and stars in the feature. He plays a divorced father who begins to suspect that his ex-wife’s secret new partner is having an unconventional influence on his children. The MRC-produced film, which also stars Linda Cardellini, completed photography in May and is currently in the sound-mixing stage and preparing to show 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 in this relationship, like, we had really good relationships with our ex-wives, and we have kids with them,” Hader told Chris O’Fault, IndieWire’s vice president of feature strategy and host of the Filmmaker Toolkit podcast. “We started talking about the worst-case scenario, ‘Oh my God, this person is going through this and this person is going through that.’ And then this idea came.”
While keeping plot details vague, Hader admitted that he “kind of gave up” on the film for a while, because the end of each draft felt “like every other horror movie”. But a curious new release about the unnatural world of online scalpers in 2025 finally drew them back to the project.
“I went to Nuert [Theater] Myself and I watched Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s film ‘Cloud,'” he said. ”And, [my movie] There’s nothing like that movie. But, for some reason, I saw that movie and I walked out and I said, ‘I think I know how to do this.’ You’ll never watch this movie and think of ‘Cloud,’ but it’s right there.”
A feature project has long been in the works for Hader, one of the most distinctive cinephiles to emerge from the cast of “SNL.” (check His Second Criterion Closet TourIn which he has won 15 titles, including Robert Bresson’s “A Man Escaped,” “Salvatore Giuliano” and an Alan King box set.) After directing multiple episodes of “Barry” — and earning a Directors Guild of America award in 2019 for the series — a push into feature film production has seemed inevitable for several years.
Still, Heder says he had some self-doubt going into the project, stemming from his sketch comedy days.
Hader said, smiling, “‘SNL’ helped with that. You would get shot at constantly. It was horrible.” “But, in doing so, you are acting on instinct.”
That healthy dose of fear helped Heder foster collaborative conversations throughout the filmmaking process, whether it was testing the looks of different lenses on location scouts or talking through his shot lists with his editor in pre-production.
“There’s always doubt. And that’s good. If you’re not afraid, you’re doomed,” Haider said. “I met someone I worked with [Martin] Scorsese. He said the best thing about it was that he would start the day and say, ‘I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know what this is. And that’s just freeing. … We are all scared. The worst is when people come like, ‘I Know What’s going on.’ And within five minutes you’re like, ‘The director doesn’t know what they’re doing.’
Haider returned to the sentiment in the home-stretch of the conversation, highlighting the lesson for the crowd.
He said, “Don’t be afraid to be wrong. That’s the thing that bothered me. I was so afraid of looking like an idiot.” “Go wrong as fast as you can. Like, it’s all wrong, but it doesn’t matter. We’re just going. We’re going to be okay. Just keep going.”
Along with Hader’s “What No One Tells You About Directing Your First Feature” presentation, IndieWire’s Future of Filmmaking Summit also included a keynote address from directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller on the making of their sci-fi blockbuster “Project Hail Mary” and an appearance by “Obsession” writer/director Currie Barker, who received IndieWire’s inaugural Future of Filmmaking Award. Was honored.
The IndieWire Future of Filmmaking 2026 Summit is presented by AT&T Untold Stories, an impressive multi-year collaboration between AT&T and the Tribeca Festival that awards $1.2 million, mentorship and extensive support to the next generation of filmmakers looking to bring their films to the big screen. For more information, go here.