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If Patty Jenkins had walked through the first door that opened for her, she might not still be here to hold it for others. The director, who made history in more than one way with 2017’s Wonder Woman, had been hired to direct another big-budget comic book film six years earlier. The deal eventually self-destructed, which she regards as a blessing. Jenkins is a powerhouse now, mentoring other filmmakers even as she completes work on the new wave-themed sequel Wonder Woman 1984. Jenkins has become an icon. She might have been a cautionary tale.

“It’s an interesting, complex thing when you realize that not only are you just a person doing your job, but that there are all of these other ramifications to what your success or your failure stands for,” she said at the postproduction studio in Santa Monica where she was finishing WW84. The film was set to open June 5, but yesterday was postponed until August 14 due to the still-unfolding coronavirus crisis.

For Jenkins, the Wonder Woman franchise stands for something bigger than box office. “If I can make another successful film and it proves that this model works, then it will hopefully help other people,” she said. “But also in the micro, I’m always trying to have conversations with people or support people or help people.”

Wonder Woman was the first female-led comic book movie in more than a dozen years and made Jenkins the first woman to helm a big-budget studio superhero movie during the genre’s landscape-altering renaissance. The film went on to become the highest-grossing movie ever directed by a solo female filmmaker.

At least three other women will direct superhero movies this year, and Jenkins has become a vital resource. She spent Oscar weekend not obsessing about awards or working the party circuit, but speaking at a seminar for college film students hoping to somehow break through. She’s also reaching younger kids, with toy maker Mattel giving Jenkins a special “role models” Barbie in her likeness.

In talking about her journey, the director said success came not just from learning what to fight for, but accepting what fights weren’t worth having.

Movie fans exulted when Jenkins was hired to make the sequel to Marvel’s Thor in September 2011. Here was the filmmaker who had guided Charlize Theron to her Oscar-winning performance in 2003’s Monster and had delivered the harrowing pilot for AMC’s The Killing. Jenkins’s gritty, empathetic storytelling style was heralded as just what comic book movies needed most. But she departed the Marvel Studios project amid “creative differences” just three months after signing on, and Thor: The Dark World went on to be one of Marvel Studios’ most notorious duds. Even Chris Hemsworth rolled his baby blues over the film in later interviews, telling GQ, “The second one is meh.”

Jenkins spoke frankly about her departure: “I did not believe that I could make a good movie out of the script that they were planning on doing. I think it would have been a huge deal—it would have looked like it was my fault. It would’ve looked like, ‘Oh my God, this woman directed it and she missed all these things.’ That was the one time in my career where I really felt like, Do this with [another director] and it’s not going to be a big deal. And maybe they’ll understand it and love it more than I do.” The director shook her head. “You can’t do movies you don’t believe in. The only reason to do it would be to prove to people that I could. But it wouldn’t have proved anything if I didn’t succeed. I don’t think that I would have gotten another chance. And so, I’m super grateful.”

There wasn’t a trace of bitterness or sarcasm in her voice. “I really have nothing but positive things to say about Marvel, because, honestly, they gave me that chance in the first place and it was not en vogue to do so,” she said, then lit up talking about the next installment in that franchise, Taika Waititi’s Thor: Ragnarok. “They found Thor’s rightful director. Taika’s so good for Thor. Oh my God, I love that movie. His tone with Thor was just masterful. That felt like pure Taika to me.”

Jenkins is known for her intensity, for her ferocious action, and her sometimes dark sensibilities (she also made the TNT true-life crime memoir I Am the Night, written by her husband, Sam Sheridan). But in person, she had a beaming “can you believe this?” smile, wore a sweater that read “All You Need Is Love,” and—on top of the obvious intellect and professional shrewdness—emanated “cool mom” vibes. (Many directors put their kids in movies, but Jenkins put her 11-year-old son, Asa, in WW84 three times. “I just changed his hair. Every time I needed a kid to do something, I was like, ‘Asa, get in here! Okay, now you’re blond.’ ”)

The director believes that empathy is one of the things that made her the right voice for the Wonder Woman franchise. “That’s my favorite thing about her,” she said. “Heroism involves keeping your love and compassion intact while you try to change the world. I love that about Wonder Woman and it was one of the things I felt the most passionate about being maintained, because it was something that I loved about her growing up. She was an inspiration and no part of her made me feel that I couldn’t also be a woman, and also be a mother, and also be a wife or a girlfriend or a partner. She’s a whole-bodied hero who stands for goodness, but also love and compassion and kindness. That’s where it was the most challenging—the world not thinking a female superhero could be powerful.”

Jenkins also had to resist the strange but persistent notion that Wonder Woman could only be powerful. “There’s been such fear that a female character…couldn’t be vulnerable and they couldn’t be funny and they couldn’t have love. There’s this list of things they can’t have, to prove [that they’re strong]. I’m like, Well, that’s not a main character. You have to be able to have all these things. You can’t be afraid.”

Confidence is what Birds of Prey director Cathy Yan said she got from consulting with Jenkins while her DC superhero movie was beginning production—and something she believes female filmmakers have to pass on to each other as their ranks grow. “I had impostor syndrome, as I think many people do. I came from an indie world and I had a matter of months between my first feature premiering at Sundance and then running the ship on Birds of Prey. There was an element of: Do I belong here? Can I do this? Like all the insecurities that anyone would have,” Yan said. “I was working with such a high caliber of people, Oscar nominees, and people I admired from afar in the industry for such a long time. There is this moment when you go, ‘Wow, they’re all looking at me.’ ” Jenkins’s pep talks made Yan “able to lean into that confidence and say, ‘Yeah, damn right they should be looking at me. I’m the director!’ It was just that little boost of confidence I think that was much needed.”

Jenkins’s own role models have included forerunners like Penny Marshall, Mimi Leder, Kathryn Bigelow, and Nora Ephron, but she doesn’t believe that female filmmakers do a fundamentally different job than their male counterparts. “I think the only thing that’s important about being a woman filmmaker is knowing what not to pay attention to, and just try to blow through it,” she said. “Being a filmmaker is being a filmmaker.”

When other women ask Jenkins how she has dealt with sexist power brokers, she says that she tunes them out—that she doesn’t let their hang-ups hang her up. “That’s happening on their own time,” she said, before turning her attention back to her postproduction duties on the Wonder Woman sequel. “I’m just making a movie over here, you know what I mean?”