Staying Fit
Robert Adam Mayer
Aisha Tyler, 52, plays Jules on Apple TV+’s new thriller, The Last Thing He Told Me, based on the best-selling novel by Laura Dave. She’s also starring in, as well as directing, episodes of Criminal Minds: Evolution on Paramount+. She describes what it’s like to be both behind and in front of the camera, and why actors often make great directors.
Growing up, were you a big TV watcher?
I wasn’t. My parents didn’t believe in TV, so I didn’t even have a television until I was in high school. I was a really hardcore book reader. I would take the flashlight under the covers after bedtime and read for hours. My mom bought me the Little Women compilation — a giant book, it probably weighed 10 pounds. I carried that around until the cover came off. I was a big [J.R.R.] Tolkien person, so [The] Lord of the Rings, all kinds of sci-fi, [Ray] Bradbury — just obsessed with science fiction and wanted to go to the moon, wanted to be a space lady. I was dying to be an astronaut. I think at the time I was just too much of a weird intellectual. I didn’t want to go into the military, and I loved science, but once I got into complex math I realized I was more of a lover than a scientist.
Did you ever dream of a career in the entertainment industry?
No no no no. I was going to be a lawyer. I did improv in high school, but it was mostly just a hobby. Then I got my degree at Dartmouth and went to work between undergraduate and grad school. My partner at the time was a paralegal, and I just looked at his experience in a law office and it didn’t seem very appealing — it looked plodding and combative. So I thought, I’ll just pursue an artistic life now because I can always go back and get a day job. It went well.
In Apple TV+'s “The Last Thing He Told Me,” Tyler plays Jules, the childhood best friend of Jennifer Garner’s character, Hannah.
Apple TV
How does directing compare to acting?
Acting is like being a prep cook who only has responsibilities for one item on the line. Directing is the chef de cuisine who has to run the entire kitchen — and not just think about the food, but the health and the safety and the behavior and the intention of all of the other chefs, and the front of the house, and how the plates look, and how many forks, and how many spoons, and how the wine pairs with the food and how the flowers are — to do your job. Acting is just really caring for yourself and often maybe the other actor in your scene. When you are a director, you realize you have to care for everybody and every little thing. … It’s much more demanding. You’re the first in and last out. Every decision is yours, but it’s much more rewarding.
Are there directors you look to for inspiration?
Steven Soderbergh, Gina Prince-Bythewood [and] Paul Greengrass are favorites in a lot of genres I find aspirational. I’ve been lucky to have found some directors in the business who have mentored me at times. Ava DuVernay has been inspirational in that way. I’m also always really excited to see what Regina King and Ben Affleck are doing, because they’ve both come out of acting. Ron Howard was an actor before he was a director, and directors who come out of acting have a really specific and unique point of view and tend to do really interesting work.
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