RECAP: Tribeca's Storytelling Summit with Luminary Zach Woods
This session at the Tribeca Film Festival took place June 6, 2026. Direct quotes edited for clarity. Photos courtesy of Brittany Lewis.
Zach Woods sat down with Saturday Night Live's Jane Wickline to discuss his career as part of the Tribeca Film Festival's Storytelling Summit. Zach has been distinguished as a "Luminary" in Tribeca's programming, alongside other artists and filmmakers like Zach Braff, Lily Rabe, Rebecca Miller, and many more creatives.
The conversation was funny and friendly—it was Zach's first time meeting Jane, and the two exchanged kind words about each other's work.
Images courtesy of Brittany Lewis
The quintessential "how'd it all start" question opened up the conversation, and we heard Zach recount his journey to Upright Citizens Brigade. He recalled his familiar arc of being forced to quit playing trumpet—letting go of his dreams to be a jazz musician—because of his braces. (Side note: It turns out Jane Wickline also wanted to perform jazz but ended up in comedy instead. Small world!)
Zach's turn from music led to initially booking commercials and eventually his first role in a feature film, In the Loop, directed by Armando Iannucci. He fondly recalled the trip to London for filming; meeting James Gandolfini; and the sense of wonder and appreciation he felt about the opportunity.
The Intersection of Directing and Improv
Jane asked Zach about moments of improv while filming The Accompanist. At the film premiere's post-screening Q&A session, Zach mentioned a moment Susan Sarandon improvised in one funny scene with Aubrey Plaza. During this talk, he said there was lots of improv, particularly when a scene wasn't working: "If anything [during scenes] ever felt too rote or predictable or dialed or they got a whiff of planning and just be like, don't say the lines. We got to do something else. If you want people loose, you want people present. So there's lots of improv."
Zach's approach to directing is aligned by love, fascination, and acceptance. He praises his actors in The Accompanist, describing Everly Carganilla's performance as "staggering"; and he "adores" Susan Sarandon, saying they have "a nice relationship." He speaks at length about Everly, noting he's known her "half her life"; Everly is now 12 and filmed Bud (2021) at six. He praised her, saying, "She's this magical kid. But sometimes child actors just have this kind of childlike freedom and that is electric on screen. It's like filming an animal almost where it's like the lack of self-consciousness, blah, blah, blah. Everly is not that. Everly is a character actor. Everly knows exactly what she's doing and is very thoughtful and detailed and deliberate about it."
Zach's experience as an actor informed how he treated his performers and crew, citing an Eastern European he could not name that evoked career-best performances: "[The director's actors] all said some version of the same thing, which is that I knew that no matter what idea it would be met with love and with fascination. And I think about that all the time."
Zach also remarked on how critical creating safety was for a successful director/performer partnership: "Once people know they're safe, and once people know that you want to see them, they'll show you the most delicate, beautiful stuff. But they have to know that you want to see it and that you're not going to handle it carelessly." Citing his own fallibility, he added, "Sometimes I do handle it careless, sometimes I mess up, but then you just have to apologize and try better."
He recognized that the role of director is not always a clear one, or as delineated as say, a gaffer or editor. Zach said, "It's like, what's a director? The director's not hanging the lights, the director's not saying the lines, the director's not cutting, not doing the on [Adobe Premiere], cutting the thing or Avid [Media Composer] whatever, Sue me. So what are you there to do? You're there to sort of create the conditions in the greenhouse where things can grow. And so I think my approach to actors is sort of the same as everyone, which is just to be like, 'I need what you have and I appreciate what you have.' And then I'll try to shape, I'll shape it so that it doesn't feel chaotic."
You are the only person I can think of who's good at using Instagram. I'm curious about the last year and what has been fun for you about that and has a way to get ideas out there.
Zach, of course, responded with self-deprecation, mentioning joining the platform at 40. "I turned 40 and got Instagram, and it's just like, oh, just walk into a crypt and never come back." He praised Block Party, the digital media agency that handles editing his social media content for Instagram. According to their website, Zach's "Get Ready With Me (GRWM)" video highlighting a "natural makeup day" reached 9.4 million views. Block Party CEO Eytan Oren was present at the talk, filming Zach and Jane in a front-row seat.
But the conversation turned serious when the comedians discussed social media in earnest. Zach noticed his videos were getting "angrier and angrier"—and his observation is not incorrect. His most recent three videos hold some aspect of violence: His May 26 Instagram reel announcing United Airlines' new "economy slap fare class," involving slapping and spanking airline passengers; his May 20 video about the fallout involving a (nonexistent) video he posted to YouTube about punching your boss in the face; and a very angry message directed to Madame Tussauds demanding, quote: "Why the FUCK aren't I in your museum?" while a suspicious white powder is dusted below his nose. Toward the end of the video, he attempts to behead an American Girl Doll toy.
Zach acknowledged his feelings about Instagram and social media were "complicated," observing that "there's this awful loneliness that seems to be spreading and deepening" and that these digital platforms were a factor for that, but not the only one.
He then pivoted to how crucial it was to reach people through storytelling: "There's something about stories that let you feel like you're not so alone. There's so many obstacles between us in the form of ideology and class and race and gender and sexuality and geography, and there's so many ways that we can get snared and not make it to each other. And I find that [through] stories, you tunnel under all that barbed wire and you can get to people fast and you can be gotten to fast."
Zach Woods' Advice, Learned and Given
Zach holds his acting teacher and mentor Anya Saffir in high esteem, having mentioned her in multiple interviews over the course of his career. Zach reflected on Saffir's words of wisdom that he took into his role as director.
Speaking to advice he sought on directing from Anya, he recalled her saying, "'When you're watching a scene, there'll be the temptation to try to think of something smart to say to go over and you'll have something really insightful to say.' She said, 'Don't do that. … have an experience of the scene and then speak to the actors from that experience.' And she said, 'Don't be an outside eye. Be an outside heart.' And I thought that was so helpful because as an actor, I've dealt with that where someone has a visceral reaction to my performance, but then they make it into an idea and then they give me the idea and then I have to take the idea out of my head and put it back in my body. Whereas when someone just comes up and you feel them, it's, it is like they're pressing their belly up against you, which a lot of directors have done to me, and it's all very dumb. You just feel it somatically, it's witchy, it's weird. And then UGH, yes, okay, I'll do it. … I try to just improvise with [my actors] as a director—be here now, see what's happening now. Be a little bit intuitive about it."
He also cites "the idea of the scene is the enemy of the scene," also attributed to Saffir: "The map you have in your head about how it's supposed to play out is the enemy of the scene because then you're just trying to hit your own sort of preconception. You're trying to reenact a performance that never even happened, and that's in your head. And no one wants to see a reenactment. They want to see life happen in front of a camera in real time.'"
Mentioned Media and Influences
During the conversation, Zach mentioned a few pieces of media and figures that he admired and respected:
Pina Bausch and her piece Palermo Palermo: Zach summarized a moment in Palermo Palermo in connection to the idea of "being seen," a concept Zach has expressed before when experiencing creative works, such as films:
Spencer Tracy: "I've often felt more known and understood and seen paradoxically in a dark room with a bunch of strangers with light and shadows flickering across the screen with people who are long dead. It's like, I'll be sitting in a dark room with people I don't know, watching Spencer Tracy, and I'll feel more seen than when I've been at my cousin's wedding or whatever and talking to my family."
The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams: A book deeply personal to Zach ("I've essentially memorized this passage"), Zach essentially recited the moment Skin Horse explains to the Velveteen Rabbit about toys breaking down, becoming real: "When you're real, you can't be ugly except to people who don't understand." (In a deeply interesting side note: Anya Saffir "co-wrote and directed an operetta," which just so happened to be The Velveteen Rabbit.)
Emily from Our Town by Thornton Wilder: During Q&A, reflecting on his time on Silicon Valley, Zach talked about his feelings moving from fear and anxiety to gratitude, once he realized the show wouldn't last forever; recalling Emily's return to the cemetery after reliving one ordinary day, Zach asserted: "So look around, look at the people, look at the set, look at it. Take it in."
A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams: the conversation revealed that Zach (unsurprisingly) is a rolodex of quotes, jokingly saying he "always depends on the kindness of strangers."
It Takes a Village Made of Magic (and Dying Cars)
A touching moment came when Jane asked Zach what he was most proud of about The Accompanist, which held its world debut at Tribeca on June 4 at the SVA Theater. Zach's easy, warm response: "The people who made it." He emphasized the film couldn't have been made without the cast and crew, some of whom were present during the session. Zach took the time to recognize the herculean team effort that was making a film; one memory he cited involved crew members constantly dealing with a rental service that kept supplying them with dying cars—like a "car hospice."
After recounting the Velveteen Rabbit scene ("a hell of a passage"), Zach reinforced how meaningful storytelling is, and how it makes characters—and by extension, love—real, involving cast and crew, no matter where they landed hierarchically:
I really believe that when you're making stories, if I can love the character enough when I'm writing it with my writing partner, Brandon Gardner, then they become real to me. And if we love them enough, then we can not just to play with, but really love 'em and we can hand 'em off to actors and PAs and caterers. … If we can take these and they can love the characters and the people making it, they become real to them. And then if we give it to an audience and some of the audience hopefully loves the characters and they become real to the audience, that to me is the best version of it. And in that process, you become realer to yourself and your collaborators become realer to you. And it is this kind of loneliness murderer and this empathy machine. And to me, that's the best.
Before taking audience questions, Zach closed this thread with an allusion to Peter Pan, before thanking his team in the room twice more: "These guys have brought their love to bear on these imaginary people and made them real. It's like when you clap for Tinkerbell in Peter Pan, like if the audience claps hard enough, Tinkerbell will come back.
When you're in the middle of a show like [Silicon Valley] and there's so many talented people around you and such a talented director with Mike Judge, does it feel effortless? Did you feel comfortable, or was it something you had to kind of bring yourself to every day?
It depends on what season. After I shot the pilot of Silicon Valley, I sobbed on the drive home and I called my mom. And was like, 'Oh, I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. I'm a mess.' She was like, 'Don't use that language with me.' And I felt so bad early on. And then slowly I was like, 'Wait a second. I respect Mike Judge. And Mike Judge wouldn't keep me around if he wasn't happy enough with what I'm doing.' And then like, with the other actors I was like, 'They seem to like me. I don't think they would like me if I was total dead weight.' And I slowly started to calm down and then it became really fun.
[Zach recounts the scenes with Emily from Our Town.]
But that idea of once you're free from the mire of your own terror, it gives you a chance to start to remember that you're going to be gone. … I was very much like, 'Okay, this isn't going to be here.' So eat your ice cream before it melts.
For those who are just starting out and aspiring to break into this industry … what is the best piece of advice that you can offer, and looking back at your own journey, how do you approach mentorship, like mentor protégé, or helping out the next generation of young professionals?
I think it's really important to segregate the marketplace of the entertainment industry from the act of creative engagement because the marketplace is cold and indifferent at best, but the impulse that exists in you to create things is sacred. And I think there's this malignant feeling that if you're not making money or being publicly lauded for a thing, then surely it's just an embarrassing indulgence that you've committed.
But the flickering flame that is your imagination and your passion and your entirely unique experience of the world is yours and yours alone. … Martha Graham has this beautiful quote where she says, it is only your job to stay open. You don't even have to believe in your work. It's not for us to decide the value of it. It's just your job to stay open because you have essentially a flame in you that is unique to you. And if you do not stay open, it will be lost and the world will not have it. It's such a fickle, fucked up business that's contracting, or at least changing in the contraction's part of the change.
And if you need a lot of extrinsic validation in order to be able to believe in your work, then it's going to be rough sledding for anyone. No matter how much of it you get, it probably will never salve your need for it. So I guess what I'm trying to say is this: it's definitely not too late ever, ever for you to connect with the part of yourself that wants to share what you find beautiful and troubling about the world. Ever. I mean, you could say, who are you to say? And I'd say I'm a ✨luminary✨. I really hope that if you feel the impulse to make beautiful things, you'll make them and not evaluate their worth by the kind of public response or the financials, certainly not by the financial response. And then the last thing I'll say is in terms of mentorship, I've relied hugely on mentors. I try to look out for people. You need your rabbis, you need your witches, you got to get 'em, and you got to be them when you can.
From your perspective, coming in as an actor, how did you develop your directing process? Did you go and read a bunch of books? Was it based off movies? You've had the pleasure of working with such phenomenal directors with just studying their process. What would you recommend to someone who's jumping from those two [professions]?
I would ask tons of questions on set. I would talk to the camera operators. I'd be like, what lens are you on? What kind of glass are you using? What kind of capture medium? What kind of camera, blah, blah, blah. And talk to the sound people. And I would ask people, what's something the directors always don't understand about your job? I would try to ask department heads that a lot. Be like, what's the thing that people always get wrong about your job? And I still do that. When I'm on set, I treat the set where I'm acting as a film school.
People will tell you, like I said—gentle invitation, people will give you the world. The other thing is I asked all the people who I work with who I admire, I'd ask for their advice. If you can teach yourself enough technical stuff that you can advocate for what you know you need. You don't have to be an expert about every little detail, but you have to know enough to be able to communicate with people who are technicians.
Here's the question I asked:
When I saw the premiere of The Accompanist, it was extremely … I knew it was a very personal movie to you, Zach. And so what I wanted to ask is, how did you get to a place of vulnerability to pen and direct that movie that was very personal to you, as well as how did you make your actors feel safe so that they expressed their vulnerability within that film?
I think I am slightly ambivalent about being seen in conversations. I'd rather ask questions than answer them often. But with a film, there's sort of plausible deniability, you know, and it's easier to look at … [pauses, thinking] …You kind of need to ricochet the truth of your experience off of a fictional wall, because throwing it directly feels too …
Close.
Yeah. And for the actors, I think a lot of it just has to do with paying attention. I think attention is love, often. If you just really slow down and don't just treat them as obstacles on the way to your agenda and really hear what they're saying. Because they're right, a lot too. So many times Susan would start to be like, well, what about this thing? I'd be like, no, no, no. And then the second I slow it down, I'd be like, fuck, she's right. That's right. I told her, I was like, it's irritating. It turns out you know a great deal about storytelling!
But yeah, I think it's just slowing down—slowing down and paying attention, just that's, people don't feel safe when they're rushed. That's what I think. I'm not always good at it, but that's what I try to do.
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