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Q&A: ‘The Resident’ Creator Amy Holden Jones Looks Back at the Ups and Downs of Her Long Career (Part 1 of 2)

From turning down Steven Spielberg, to editing Hal Ashby’s worst film, to directing a slasher for Roger Corman, the filmmaker had seemingly done it all before she was even thirty…

Cole Haddon
The Writing Cooperative
17 min readJun 26, 2023

Photo courtesy of Amy Holden Jones

If the world’s biggest director called you up and asked you to edit his deeply personal fantasy film for him, I’m willing to bet you’d say yes. Most people would, in fact. Not Amy Holden Jones, whose career in Hollywood spans half a century now. When Steven Spielberg tried to recruit her to cut what would become for a time the most successful film in history, she decided to turn him down and direct her first film instead — a bold move that is only one of several she has made at professional crossroads, moves that would transform her life as an artist over and over again, keep her relevant when others might have seen their names fade from IMDb’s digital memory, and ultimately lead her to creating the wildly successful TV series “THE RESIDENT”1.

The Fox series ended its six-season run, after 107 episodes, this past January. It seemed like a good time to chat with Amy about it, but, for a cinephile like me, I have to admit I was far more…

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Written by Cole Haddon

Cole Haddon is probably writing right now. And drinking coffee -- want to buy him one? https://www.buymeacoffee.com/colehaddon

Responses (5)

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Good work.Thanks for the insight

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Amazing article, Cole! Thank you for sharing.

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Great interview, can't wait for part 2 😊

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