Lifestyle
‘Spider-Man’ director found his connection to the world at the movies
In Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Peter Parker (Tom Holland) is alone — very alone. “There’s just nothing better than watching Tom play an awkward scene,” says director Destin Daniel Cretton. “His comedic timing with his awkwardness, I think, is one of the most brilliant things about him. It’s so relatable.”
Jay Maidment/Columbia Pictures
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Jay Maidment/Columbia Pictures
Growing up with his five siblings in Maui, director Destin Daniel Cretton says his mom didn’t let the kids watch much TV. “We had to find our own ways of playing make-believe, or making up plays, or making dance routines, fight choreography,” he recalls.
Then, on a family vacation to California, his grandmother loaned him her VHS camera. “I became the person who was documenting the trip,” he says. “And my grandma kind of encouraged me to do that.” He got a thrilling glimpse of Hollywood and Universal Studios and Disneyland. “All of that inspiration came back with me to Maui,” he says. “And that’s when we started making movies nonstop.”
Movies connected him to the outside world, Cretton explains. “As a kid, I would watch many movies with my dad, with our family, and that is how I traveled. That is how I was exposed to other cultures. That’s how I understand how kids grew up in high school on the mainland. And one of my biggest takeaways was not how different we are, but how similar we are, emotionally.”
Cretton’s first job out of college was at a group home for at-risk teenagers. He turned that experience into the 2013 film Short Term 12, starring Brie Larson, Rami Malek and LaKeith Stanfield. He went on to direct the 2017 film adaptation of Jeannette Walls’ memoir, The Glass Castle, as well as Just Mercy, about attorney Bryan Stevenson’s work defending men on Death Row. His Marvel debut was the 2021 film Shang-Chi and The Legend of The Ten Rings, and he created the Marvel series Wonder Man. Now, he’s the director of Spider-Man: Brand New Day.
Interview Highlights
On connecting to Peter Parker’s experience of feeling alone in Spider-Man: Brand New Day
I was reflecting a lot on my 20s when I left university and when I didn’t really have a real direction in life, when a lot of my friends are going off to other things. And it felt like a lot of people were moving on without me. It was easy at that time to feel completely alone, to feel like I didn’t have a direction to go. … Being surrounded by people who all seem like they have it together and seem like they are having the time of their lives. And I remember certain times feeling very alone in the middle of it.
On working in a home for at-risk teens
It was a job that really threw a lot of things back into my face. It was by far the most difficult experience that I had up until that point and also the most rewarding. … I didn’t realize how sheltered I was until I was working at that group home. I just was not exposed to the type of experiences that these young people had gone through. And I also wasn’t ready for the people that they had become because of their experiences. These young teenagers were, in many ways, much more mature than I was … but then they had very real pain from their past that was just right under the surface that they were always dealing with. It was very quickly a very humbling experience for me.
“I feel very surprised and lucky to be where I am,” says Destin Daniel Cretton, director of Spider-Man: Brand New Day.
Jay Maidment/Columbia Pictures
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Jay Maidment/Columbia Pictures
On thinking of film as a hobby, not a career
I graduated with a communication degree and I couldn’t really get a job anywhere. I was making short films. I would do a short film once a year and I would just save my money. So I worked at a group home for two or three years. I taught high school video production. I worked at a hotel putting up their media, their projectors and things. I had a lot of odd jobs to pay the bills. I shot wedding videos, but it was all really a way to just pay the bills while I made movies as a hobby.
On directing the 2021 Marvel superhero film Shang-Chi — and, for the first time in his professional career, walking into a space where nearly everyone was Asian
It was one of those things I didn’t really know I was missing until it happened. … There was something about set that just felt homey, that felt so comfortable — to be able to have conversations with people that fully understand what my grandma is like, and what growing up in an Asian culture is like. So I didn’t know that that aspect of myself could be a part of my filmmaking. You know, I always sort of compartmentalized my upbringing, and my culture, and growing up in Hawaii as sort of a separate thing than my experience as a filmmaker — until I was on set for Shang-Chi. It was very special.
On his complex relationship with his father
I think in many ways, most of my movies have something to do with my dad. My dad was a very passionate man … and could also be very dark and very angry. And, you know, it just depends which dad you are going to get on the day. I grew up learning to, along with my siblings, learning to navigate those emotions — those real intense peaks and valleys. And when my dad would come home, I learned to become very sensitive to what state he was in. …
So aside from my love of movies, my experience with my dad … really allowed me to not be afraid of any person. … It also allowed me to subconsciously create this skill of feeling other people’s emotions, which I find I use all the time as a director. The moment an actor steps on set, I feel like I just know what state they’re in, and I know what they need. I’ve learned how to bring down a very intense situation. I do feel like he was a very wonderful and troubled man, but I am so grateful to have had him as my dad.
On throughlines in his work
I feel like I’m exploring the idea of family in different ways. … Spider-Man: Brand New Day the idea of family and community is really at the core of this movie. I’m always interested in what happens to a person when they are outside of that family and community, and the importance of that connection with people who truly know who you are, that you can fully be yourself around. To me, that has just always remained the most powerful aspect of my life, is staying connected to the people who really know me.
Ann Marie Baldonado and Susan Nyakundi produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Molly Seavy-Nesper and Beth Novey adapted it for the web.
It’s been 60 years since NBC aired the first episode of Star Trek. Above, Leonard Nimoy as Spock.
Star Trek Archive
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Star Trek Archive
Ask actress Jeri Ryan about the endurance of Star Trek, and she answers with the earnestness of a truly converted fan.
“The way that Star Trek has always held a mirror up to society and always been political in a non-threatening way … it’s fascinating to me. It was groundbreaking,” said Ryan, who knew little about Trek when she joined Voyager in 1997 to play the character Seven of Nine.
Ryan marveled at how the original series, which debuted on NBC in 1966, featured a Russian character as the Cold War was raging in real life, alongside a Black female officer and a Japanese helmsman, sending a not-so-subtle message of what it might take to survive and thrive in the future.
“It was an optimistic view … of what we could achieve if we stop screwing it up,” she added, ruefully. “If we learn to appreciate and celebrate our differences and stop being afraid of everyone who is different from us.”
Robert Picardo and Jeri Ryan in Star Trek: Voyager.
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Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Star Trek officially notched its 60th birthday last week, joining a select few TV and film franchises that have survived six decades of pop culture upheaval. The original series, starring William Shatner as Capt. James T. Kirk and Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock, aired for three seasons on NBC. It gave rise to a franchise of TV shows, films, video games, novels, comic books, conventions and collectibles.
They’re all centered on characters connected to Starfleet — an exploratory and peacekeeping armada co-founded in the distant future by humans, who scoot between planets in giant starships and are connected to other alien species in a United Federation of Planets.
In the streaming era, Trek has spawned seven series and a movie, including Discovery in 2017, the animated series Lower Decks in 2020 and the last two franchise TV series, both planning to wrap up their runs: Starfleet Academy and Strange New Worlds.
And that is where Star Trek‘s biggest challenge in many years may begin. Though an executive at Paramount+ told Deadline that the company wants to find a new iteration of Star Trek — and a new writing team is also supposedly working on a script for a new Trek movie for Paramount Pictures — there is no definitive film or TV show announced yet.
If no new Trek projects are revealed soon, next year may mark the first time in about a decade that there have been no new Star Trek TV series or movies in production.
Could it be possible that, one year after its 60th birthday, there could be an entertainment universe without new Star Trek, at least for a while?
A scene from the animated series Star Trek: Lower Decks.
Best Possible Screen Grab/CBS All Access
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Best Possible Screen Grab/CBS All Access
Why Star Trek may need a break
Critics have a lot of ideas about why Trek might not be resonating with new fans, from dissatisfaction with the direction of recent series, to the limitations of Paramount+, where most new iterations of the franchise have been confined.
Akiva Goldsman, who co-created and serves as co-showrunner on Strange New Worlds, admits that some traditionalist fans may have objected to the big creative swings that the series has taken during its run, including a musical episode and an episode in which most of the crew of the Enterprise is transformed into Muppet-like puppets.
Still, he says Trek‘s appeal as a morality play that shifts with the times is key to its enduring appeal over decades. “[Its] about optimism, about exploration, about this notion that decency and kindness and empathy are the strengths of our culture,” he said. “I think the world often isn’t that. And I think we often yearn for that.”
Goldsman saw firsthand how early Trek conventions in the mid-1970s pioneered the gigantic science fiction and fantasy-based fan conventions of the modern era. He keeps the program from his first convention in 1974 framed in his office, remembering how fans from across the country gathered to watch an episode screened in a theater with better color and more scenes than the TV version. “From that point on,” he said, “all we wanted was more.”
So why isn’t there more Trek definitively on the horizon after next year? Goldsman blames the impact of streaming TV for reducing viewers’ desire to see lots of seasons of one series. “Maybe people just want one or two great seasons of everything and then they move along,” he said. “This relationship that we once had with entertainment, was also when there was far less entertainment.”
Have changing attitudes about the future made Trek’s success tougher?
But Ira Steven Behr, who was showrunner for Deep Space Nine over four seasons in the ’90s, has a different point of view on Trek‘s challenges.
A notorious contrarian with a goatee dyed blue, Behr says Star Trek was born during a time when people believed — amid unrest over the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Movement and assassination of President John F. Kennedy — that the world could get better through movements that brought massive change.
And, thanks to the success of the space race and moon landing, people also believed technology would be a big part of that success.
“The secret message of Trek is that technology is good and that in the [future] it will be even better and its impact on our lives will be both beneficial and benign,” Behr said, rattling off gadgets from the Trek universe that fans love. “In spite of warp drive and replicators, transporters and holosuites, tricorders and tractor beams, our essential humanity will be unchanged.”
These days, he added, in a world filled with divisive social media, disinformation spreading across the internet and a backlash against data centers powering artificial intelligence, few still believe the future will be better thanks to technology.
“Those two major thoughts that Star Trek kinda relies on don’t make it anymore for people,” Behr said. “That s*** doesn’t fly.”
Some professed Trek fans say the new shows are too focused on identity issues or classically liberal causes — saying it’s grown too “woke.” Behr noted some of those fans seemed focused on big space battles and high adventure episodes, with little patience for the smaller, emotional storylines.
“All these spaceships would explode and everyone dug it so much and no one’s thinking about the hundreds of people getting killed,” he added. “Now I realize there’s a whole segment larger than anyone thought that would watch Trek for those explosions. They’re not interested in any larger thing the show is saying.”
Balancing fan expectations with the need to innovate
Relaxing in his Nashville home after completing filming of all Strange New Worlds’ final episodes, star Anson Mount, who plays Capt. Christopher Pike, is feeling a bit like a favorite summer camp has ended.
Noting that Trek has been around for almost a quarter of America’s lifetime, he says the show is “baked into the cake of our culture” because humans are by nature “fatalistically optimistic” in a way that the franchise highlights.
And while he also acknowledges some fans have criticized Strange New World‘s more ambitious episodes, Mount is convinced such experimentation was necessary to keep the franchise alive in the 21st century.
“I’d rather it be completely polarizing while doing something new and taking a risk,” he said. “I think Star Trek would be dead if we delivered the midline of people’s expectations … I’m not happy that people are offended; I am happy that people are having a response.”
Anson Mount, left, as Pike and Ethan Peck as Spock in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.
Marni Grossman/Paramount+
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Marni Grossman/Paramount+
While trying hard to be diplomatic, Mount does have one criticism of the current Trek franchise: “Trek has one problem to figure out,” he added. “And that is that its audience is aging and the current strategy is not bringing in a new audience. There needs to be a well-considered plan aimed at changing that.”
On that score, Star Trek may suffer from timing, technology and circumstances. Fans often came to older Trek series by watching syndicated reruns on broadcast TV, catching shows like the original series or The Next Generation after school or on the weekends. They also eventually had movies, which could bring the franchise to even bigger audiences.
But the last Trek theatrical movie, Star Trek: Beyond, was released 10 years ago, which further limits access to younger fans.
The fanbase that remains has wildly different visions of what the franchise should be based on when they started watching it — even down to series structure. (For early fans, Trek was an adventure of the week — while Deep Space Nine and Discovery had more extended plotlines.)
But Jeri Ryan wonders if Trek also isn’t stalled at Paramount because it might conflict with the politics of the company’s latest owner, CEO David Ellison — who has faced criticism for taking action in other parts of the organization to curry favor with conservative President Donald Trump. (Ellison has denied bending news organizations under Paramount’s control, including CBS News, to please Trump.)
“I have a hard time believing some of the disinterest is not political,” Ryan added, noting Trek‘s historic devotion to diversity and inclusion. (Paramount notably eliminated its diversity, equity and inclusion programs in 2025.) “I don’t think that they necessarily appreciate the message of Star Trek so much. And I don’t know that [the franchise’s message] fits into where they’re trying to take things.”
Behr remembered the last time Trek took a sizable break; when the series Enterprise was cancelled by UPN in 2005, there wasn’t a new tv show or film until Abrams’ Star Trek movie in 2009. He said Star Trek needed a break back then, and it might not be a bad thing for the franchise to get a break right now.
“[Back then], we were talking about sheer overkill,” he added. “You know, give fans a chance to want Trek back again … Even freakin’ chocolate gets old after a while if you eat too much of it.”
This story is part of Image’s September Image Makers issue, your guide to this city that refuses to be any one thing.
Japanese designers are turning heads in L.A. Their clothes can be spotted on store staff, at art and fashion events, or even on the streets, where a passing look can stop you in your tracks. A splash of chrome against an elegant eggshell-blue dress. Layers upon layers of Comme des Garçons. A colorful pair of neatly pleated Issey Miyake pants. Whatever the detail may be, it’s a look that demands attention the moment it steps outside.
Inspired by “Happy Victims” by Kyoichi Tsuzuki, a book that documents devoted collectors and the brands that fill their lives, Keyla Marquez, fashion director at large for Image, began to wonder how many people in L.A. had Japanese designer collections of their own, tucked away in their closets. Her interest in Japanese fashion comes down to what she calls “the ethos that it carries” — a sense of uniqueness and an appreciation for imperfection.
We spoke with four creatives who are reimagining what it means to not only collect Japanese fashion in L.A., but to truly embody its unique spirit. Emilia Yin, art dealer and founder of contemporary art gallery Make Room, approaches her Issey Miyake collection much like she does her art, gravitating to an array of colors and flowing forms that reflect her personal eye. Toreno Winn, stylist, photographer and creative director, is drawn to the experimental qualities of CDG, Junya Watanabe and Sacai, with playful proportions and unexpected silhouettes defining his collection. Fiel, vice president of brand and creative at the AI-native startup Newton, loves reinventions of utilitarian clothing, favoring functional pieces in deep greens and blacks. Meanwhile, actor and artist RiRia has a lifelong devotion to punk fashion, curating a Hysteric Glamour wardrobe bursting with color, energy and attitude.
Each of these artists’ closets is a source of self-expression. Their collections are more than garments and pieces of fabric; they are reflections of the people who seek them out, restore them and make them their own.
Emilia Yin: ‘One can understand the world without limitation’
Yin wears Issey Miyake dress, A.W.A.K.E. Mode boots and Dries Van Noten earrings.
Japanese fashion opens up a very diverse and unlimited way to rethink fashion and design. I grew up in Hong Kong, and Japanese fashion has always been a big influence. My family loved traveling to Japan, and I think that really helped open us up to new ways of understanding people and how different cultures can coexist within one space.
When I traveled to New York, I got my very first Issey Miyake jacket from the MoMA Design Store and at the time I didn’t know much about the brand. I was fascinated by the design and by the way the fabric was pleated. Fast forward to summer when I went back to Hong Kong, I found out my parents had also been buying Issey Miyake, so it was interesting to see these subliminal connections. We would shop in the Issey Miyake stores in Japan, and it became a way for us to express and share love with each other. The dress I’m wearing now is a dress my father bought for me before I opened my gallery, and I wore it on opening night. There are memories associated with each piece.
How I shop for pieces is very similar to how I collect and buy art. It’s a mixture of intuition, understanding and research. With Issey Miyake, the pieces are very innovative in their fabric and design, and there’s a technical design and pattern behind it. When I look at a piece, I know if it has the soul of the designer who created it. I enjoy looking at archive pieces and learning the history to understand what inspired these designers. My dream collection consists of the most unique archive pieces of each designer I collect.
I have a 6-month-old daughter and I’m looking forward to growing my collection through her eyes. I appreciate people with obsessions towards their craft and believe having a passion and love for what you do is one of the most beautiful things a human can have and I would encourage anyone to seek it.
Fiel: ‘I have such a deep appreciation for anyone who makes things’
Jet, left, wears Junya Watanabe AD2013 top and Future Collective shorts. Fiel, right, wears Sacai jacket, Uniqlo pants, Jil Sander shoes, Bottega Veneta glasses and Grainne Morton jewelry.
I had a roommate in college who collected Margiela and Morgane Le Fay. She had Japanese fashion magazines around, and I didn’t grow up with any of that stuff, so that was my first exposure. I started collecting magazines such as the Visionaire and from there started buying clothes.
There was a store behind my first office building that got all of the clothes they couldn’t sell from Barneys, and I would find bins of Margiela for $15. Comme des Garçons ended up becoming the thing I really loved. For me, it’s about the concept and craft. Recently, I’ve been interested in the reinventions of utilitarian clothing, such as bomber jackets. I have a lot of black in my collection, but recently I’ve been wearing other colors like military green.
The Sacai jacket I have on now was my grail for a long time. I buy things that are off season. People get tired of it and then they sell it. I buy things straight from Japan because the resale market there is really incredible. When I received this jacket, it was filthy and under $200, but I just washed it carefully. I love taking something that’s been neglected and restoring it and then using it so it’s not just forgotten. I’m always paying attention to the craft of everything — how things are made and the people who are behind them.
I enjoy the ideas and the silhouettes of Japanese fashion. There’s a certain philosophy to dressing the body in Japan where the clothing obscures the body. This jacket does that too, it’s like a big cocoon. It makes me feel happy. Jackets make me feel like I have a little shell and each one is a different flavor of shell depending on what the jacket is. I like turning into a different shape.
I’m working on my own creative evolution and vision. I look at the creatives I admire and you can see they have language in their work. It’s so thrilling to me how someone like Junya Watanabe comes up with his designs or how Sacai turns utilitarian clothing into something you wouldn’t expect.
RiRia: ‘I’m kind of like a prism. I take the light and I turn into a whole rainbow’
RiRia wears X-Girl dress, Kenzo X H&M pants and arm sleeve, Junya Watanabe jacket, fur collar, pins and necklace handmade by RiRia, Jwyed wallet chain, Gyaromi/Kimamaya key chain and vintage Japanese gloves.
I first moved to L.A. from Japan 14 years ago. The first store I stepped into was a Japanese art store in Little Tokyo. They had this Super Lovers piece that I only saw in magazines. I started collecting Japanese pieces because I wanted people to know where I was from. I went to a high school in downtown L.A. where there were no Asian kids, and one way for me to express myself was through my clothes. I like to say I was made in Tokyo but a product of L.A.
I love to incorporate crystals and rhinestones as an element to my fashion. I bedazzle pieces I collect and I like how it reflects the color and turns into a rainbow. That also reflects my personality. I grew up as a classical flute player but I was also into punk fashion. For performances I would put little chains on my gown and wear bedazzled badges. I feel when you have a really strong core, however you present yourself isn’t going to change who you are. I have my classical musician roots at my core, but my punk, rebellious exterior adds a cherry on top.
Japanese fashion collector, RiRia, photographed for Image Magazine’s September 2026 Image Makers issue.
(Dana Boulos / For The Times)
My favorite brand to collect is Hysteric Glamour. It was too basic for me in Japan since everyone wore it, but in L.A. it became something more rare. I learned to appreciate Japanese fashion more after moving here. All the Hysteric Glamour pieces I collect have stories to them. I look for originality and rarity when collecting. I’m really picky with what I wear, so when I style it’s influenced by Harajuku and Ura-Harajuku style. For me fashion is unpredictable, so how I feel on a certain day influences how I dress. Today I wanted to be a little punk and colorful with a neon twist.
I feel my collection speaks to my authenticity. I never collect one specific brand or designer because I select clothes based on how a piece makes me feel in the moment. I’m hoping people see that all the colors and shapes and how bedazzled I am is a reflection of my identity.
Toreno Winn: ‘I like to say I’m a Japanese Swiss Army knife. I don’t stick to any one aesthetic’
Winn wears Comme des Garçons Homme Plus top, bottoms and hat, Noir Kei Ninomiya shoes and Takahiro Miyashita TheSoloist jewelry.
My relationship with Japanese fashion started when I fell into a deep rabbit hole with Yohji Yamamoto. I bought a pair of Y3 sneakers in either 2009 or 2010. It was during the time I was collecting footwear and I was drawn to unique footwear, especially Adidas, and at the time they were doing a collaboration with Yohji. I have a huge Yohji collection, but what I mostly collect now is Comme des Garçons, Sacai, Junya Watanabe and Doublet.
I’ve developed different ways of collecting my pieces, especially through community. I have connections in Paris, Belgium and Japan, and I actually lived in Asia for some time and enrolled in a few classes. I learned sashiko stitching and footwear design and created some really cool footwear. I feel Japanese fashion in L.A. has gotten more popular and I think fashion is just a universal language we all speak — that’s how I’ve built relationships with people.
I feel my style has matured and grown over the years. It’s rooted in quality, intentionality, fabric and well-constructed garments. I’m versatile and my style is a summation of all the eras in my life.
I take a lot of inspiration from film and anime. They have some of the coolest colors and silhouettes and they come to life through animation. I try to do that by creating a character in my personal style. My three big inspirations are Rei Kawakubo, Yohji Yamamoto and Issey Miyake.
Figuring out my identity has been super helpful in showing myself to others without having to say a word, and I think that comes from my level of intentionality and how I dress. Disruption is fun. Through my work as a stylist and my personal style, I want people walking down the street or scrolling on social media to stop and think. No matter what the opinion is, I want people to form one because then there’s a reference point of “I don’t like that” or “I absolutely love that” and defining what that line is for each person is a beautiful thing.
Featured Collectors Fiel, RiRia, Toreno Winn and Emilia Yin
Creative Direction Keyla Marquez
Photography Dana Boulos
Videography Quincy Bowie
Creative Assistant Matzi
Locations Collectors’ homes in Newport Beach, Culver City and Sawtelle, Wild West Social House
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