The movies Ron Howard will always be proudest of: “It’s extremely personal”
Having always come across as one of Hollywood’s nicest guys, getting Ron Howard to place some of his films above others might be construed as the kind of Sophie’s Choice scenario that could only be extracted from the filmmaker at gunpoint.
It’s rare for an actor and director to have spent seven decades working solidly and failing to make a single enemy in that time, but that’s Howard in a nutshell. There’s obviously an inbuilt toughness to his personality; otherwise, he wouldn’t have gotten to where he is, yet he’s managed to reach the pinnacle of his profession without pissing a single person off, which is remarkable.
Howard hasn’t spoken ill of anybody he’s worked with on either side of the camera, and the reverse is true. He may not be the flashiest, showiest, or most dynamic filmmaker in the industry, but nobody becomes a two-time Academy Award winner and one of the highest-grossing directors in history if they’re crap at their job.
His apple pie and picket fences persona means that it wouldn’t shock anyone were Howard to say ‘all of them’ when quizzed on which pictures from his extensive and eclectic filmography make him beam with the most pride. Even he’s got his favourites, though, and in keeping with his choice of directorial vehicles, they don’t have anything in common other than his presence wielding the megaphone.
“I’ve tried to work in a lot of different genres and styles,” he drastically undersold it to Virgin Radio. “Parenthood is a movie that I’m very proud of. It’s extremely personal. It was made at a time when I was really living through a lot of the anxieties and the hilarious misadventures that we depicted in the movie.”
The star-studded family dramedy was close to Howard’s heart and one of just five from the 28 he’s directed where he also took a story credit. Alongside producing partner Brian Grazer and screenwriters Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, they used their own experiences of raising children to inform the script.
The second is less surprising, if only because it’s his favourite movie that he’s made. The third isn’t as obvious, although a high-octane racing drama was another feather in the cap for a filmmaker who still hasn’t met a genre he wasn’t willing to tackle. “Apollo 13, I’m really proud of,” he said. “If you are interested in motorsports, Rush is a movie that I’m really proud of.”
Apollo 13 was always going to make the cut because Howard has never been shy in viewing it as his pinnacle, but the other two are a bit out of left field. Parenthood was drawn from his personal life to a certain extent so it makes sense, whereas Rush was just a solid movie he happened to really, really enjoy making.
