I​​n Highlight Reel, Awards Insider speaks with some of this year’s most notable Oscar nominees about their entire body of nominated work. In this entry, we speak with Barbie producer David Heyman, on his fourth best-picture nomination, for his work on the theatrical phenomenon of 2023.

“You shouldn’t really know what I do,” David Heyman says as we begin our interview about his remarkable career behind the scenes. “It should never be about the producer. The producer’s role is invisible.”

So consider it something of a treat that the man who’s backed some of Hollywood’s most thrilling original success stories over the last decade—from Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity to Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood to, now, Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, hugely risky bets that have jointly grossed more than $2.5 billion worldwide—is here to discuss exactly what went into them, and the tremendous faith required in getting them financed. “All of these films are high-wire acts of sorts,” he says. “These are directors who are daring to fail. People can look at Barbie now and say, ‘Oh, come on.’ But it was not obvious.”

The London-born Heyman had been a scrappy independent producer until, more than 25 years ago, he read a little unpublished manuscript known as Harry Potter, and acquired the film rights thereafter. “I thought it was going to be a nice, modest-sized British film—shows what I knew,” Heyman says. “I thought, if I was lucky, it’d be my Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Not a clue.” The iconic franchise introduced him both to large-scale filmmaking and to visionary directors, a crucial combination that has defined his singular ability to navigate Hollywood’s IP-driven obsession to deliver films as radical as they are massive. This began on the third Potter film, The Prisoner of Azkaban, directed by Cuarón. The director liked his producer enough to see if they could collaborate again down the line.

Cuarón’s experimental portrait of two astronauts lost in space required innovations in technology, a major leap of faith from a studio willing to take the risk, and a producer who could steer the project toward the director’s vision. Fortunately, it had all that, introducing a new stage of American filmmaking and emerging as both a box-office and Oscar-winning triumph.

David Heyman: After our Potter finished, or was coming to a close, Alfonso asked me to join him on Gravity. That changed my life. He’s a true auteur, and set me on my path of what I have been doing ever since—which is supporting bold writer-directors.

Alfonso had a very clear sense of what he was trying to do and what he wanted to achieve. The technology was not there. So he and Chivo [cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki] and the visual effects supervisor, Tim Webber, came up with what we call the light box, which was what we filmed the actors in. Everything other than the head was digital—the bodies, everything. Initially somebody had the idea of doing it on a little office chair, and then it became clear that Alfonso’s vision was to do it with single shots—that required stringing shots together, because there was no way of capturing it…it required inventing this technology. My role is to support the director and his team in realizing it.

It was at Universal, and then it moved to Warners when Alfonso asked me to come aboard. It had different people involved and there was a search—trying to get the right casting, landing on Sandy [Bullock], who could not be more perfect, and George [Clooney]. There were conversations about whether we should be in space alone, or if we should see mission control and spend time with people on Earth. And of course that is against everything, and that’s what Alfonso felt. But it’s standing by his side and arguing that case—sometimes with him, sometimes when he’s not around—that’s fundamental. It was scary, trying to keep calm and keep everybody on both sides calm. For Sandy and George, especially Sandy, it was not an easy process being stuck in that light box for days on end, acting to no one, with a camera racing towards you on a track, and all preprogrammed. It’s very technical. It’s not like you can look at someone in the eye and engage. And sort of creating that atmosphere and support for them was, I guess, you’d have to ask Alfonso.

Heyman’s producing career was still mostly in Potter-world following Gravity, as he got to work on the Fantastic Beasts spin-off series, and he also launched the Paddington films with Paul King. But a new world was opened to him with Noah Baumbach’s electric domestic drama, a smaller film made with the resources to allow it to resonate with a wider audience—and win Laura Dern her first acting Oscar.

Heyman: I’d met Noah. I was friendly with Liccy Dahl and had been interested in Roald Dahl for many years. I’m a huge fan of his. He was part of my childhood and part of my teenage years, and I thought, I’d love to have been involved with his work. I went to see Liccy and I met Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach, who were there staying with Liccy, writing Fantastic Mr. Fox. I knew Noah’s agent, and many years later his agent said that Noah would like to see me when he was in London. He asked me to come aboard this project, Marriage Story, and it was at Amazon at the time. We were in conversations and we couldn’t quite get them to agree to the price or to the budget. So it fell out and we went to Netflix. Honestly, they came to the rescue because we were weeks away from dying. They were our saviors.

We spent hours going through the script page by page. It takes someone with a singular vision, but Noah is someone who likes to bounce ideas—Greta is quite similar—and is very open to collaboration, but ultimately has a very clear idea of what they want. But it’s a process. Scripts don’t come in ready form, there’s a journey to get to where they end up, and Noah invited me into that process.

Listen, I’m a big believer in the theatrical experience, and I love going to the movies and I’ll always love going to the movies. But at the time, and still today, sometimes films which can’t get financed any other way. The streamers have been bold. Some of the streamers offer theatrical nowadays—they realize the proper theatrical can seriously impact the streaming, the viewership on streaming, because it makes something an event. At that time, there were very few streamers. Netflix and Amazon really were the two. Netflix was ramping up and doing a great job. I don’t know if this film would’ve gotten made in the way it did without [then Netflix film chief] Scott Stuber, who stepped in in particular. And then they did a brilliant job on marketing Marriage Story. They made it into something. Netflix has been a great home for Noah and have supported us—we’re now making our third film together, Noah and I. They’ve been great partners and great supporters. But I don’t want to pretend that I don’t want all my films to be shown on the big screen.

Heyman had the rare fortune, in 2020, of having two films nominated for best picture in the same year. Alongside Marriage Story, a breakout success for streamer Netflix, came this period smash from Quentin Tarantino, who’d sought out Heyman as a creative collaborator who knows how to work with studios.

Heyman: We ended up with Tom Rothman and Sony. I think he said that he’d seen some of my interviews about Gravity. I was like, Why did he choose me? He knew some people who’d worked with me on some films, who encouraged us to work together. But Quentin is much of his own mind, so he made his own decision.

I flew out to Los Angeles and I arrived at his house a bit jet-lagged, and he gave me the script, and put me in one of his guest rooms, and I read it. It was quite an intimidating prospect. I remember him coming in while I was so immersed—I’m not the quickest of readers, and I was just at where the Manson gang were coming to Rick’s house—and he gave me some water and a little bit of food before. He asked how I was doing, and I said, “Get out,” because I was so immersed in it, and I’m sure that pleased him. [Laughs] He was incredibly open, again, opinionated, as you want any director to be, to have a very strong vision. But again, I was surprised how open he was to a conversation. And then we talked a few times on the phone. I went back to London. And then he flew to London and he said, “Okay. Let’s stop dating. Are we getting married?” And I said yes.

I learn so much from each of the directors. I learned a lot from Noah about performance and writing and the camera. With Quentin, I learned about film history, I learned about the references. It was just incredible. And Quentin really creates through joy. He and Greta, more than most any two directors, create an atmosphere where the crew are their family, and making a film is a celebration.

Quentin was given a budget and then given complete autonomy within that budget. There was no triangulation. He was responsible. There were times where, because of budget, we had to make some real compromises, and he was looking for solutions or had to make compromises in the ways he could shoot things. I was having a lot of those conversations with him. But he was always receptive. I’d heard stories, but he was the most responsible, decent collaborator. He was incredibly responsible, incredibly decent, incredibly respectful.

Heyman didn’t originate this cultural phenomenon, as Margot Robbie and her LuckyChap Entertainment first landed the rights and brought in Gerwig to direct. But given the film’s sizable ambitions, and Heyman’s prior working relationship with Gerwig’s husband and writing partner Baumbach, he joined the fun to do, at times, the not-so-fun work of making sure the production had the resources it needed—not always an easy task.

Heyman: The project was at Warner Brothers. Tom [Ackerley] and Margot had never made a film of that scale. And Courtenay Valenti, who was the executive, felt that I would help to just shore up. I’d made lots of films at that scale. I’ve also worked with Margot and I’d worked with Noah, who’s Greta’s now husband—I knew the players. My role was, frankly, just someone with experience. I had managed a budget of that scale. And the budget we began with was, let’s just say, nowhere near where we ended up.

I believed in Greta. The script was, when I read it, astonishing—what Greta and Noah had written. I was really able to push the studio every once in a while to do certain things. Inch by inch by inch, let’s just say. But it wasn’t an inch. It was yards. It went significantly. It was a significant job. The studio, even though it was a big leap for them, we couldn’t find comps for the film. Everybody wants a comp. There were no comps. We weren’t allowed to use animated films. We were allowed to use Legally Blonde or something like that—I can’t remember what it was—and Bridesmaids, but they’re comedies! And also they are at a certain price point, in terms of what they made and what they cost. We couldn’t use Wonder Woman because it was a superhero film. Anything that we tried, it was a nightmare.

It was a brave film. I was trying to keep, in the face of all this stuff, the provocative nature of some of the material. I’m quite calm as a person, as a producer, on the outside. Inside—not always. Maintaining that calm and trying to be, throughout, like, It’s all going to be okay. Greta makes everybody around her better. Again, in a very different way to Quentin, she similarly creates through joy. She loves what she does. She celebrates everybody.

This interview has been edited and condensed.