Rachel Morrison Says She Has ‘So Much More Empathy’ for Directors After Filming ‘The Fire Inside’

Rachel Morrison said that now that she’s completed her first feature film as a director, her empathy for filmmakers has grown immensely.

“I have so much more empathy for my directors,” Morrison told TheWrap. “Now as a DP (Director of Photography), I remember at times, like [with] ‘Black Panther,’ probably the most obvious example, where Ryan [Coogler] was putting out so many fires that he didn’t have time to shot list one day that we were supposed to be shot listing. And I’m like, ‘But it’s your own movie. How could you not be shot listing right now,’ you know?”

“And then, sure enough, on this movie, I was there putting out a gazillion fires somewhere. And I was like, [cinematographer] Rina [Yang], I need you to take a pass at this shotlist,” she recalled. “I was like, ‘Oh, I get it now.’ And it’s not to say that in either case, she just shot listed, and I just shot it. It was like, ‘You take the first pass, then we’ll go over it together.'”

Longtime cinematographer Morrison sat in the director’s chair for the first time for “The Fire Inside,” which tells the true story of Claressa “T-Rex” Shields (Ryan Destiny), who is widely recognized as one of the greatest female boxers of all time.

The film charts Shields’ rise to stardom, starting off as a young, ambitious girl with aspirations to be a fighter to her becoming the youngest woman to ever box in the Olympics at age 17 to her leading advocacy efforts for gender equality and equal pay for female athletes. In addition, the film shows viewers Shields’ tough upbringing that included her struggles growing up in poverty, her mother’s alcohol addiction and more.

Shields told TheWrap some scenes in the film were difficult to revisit.

“There’s so many moments where I find myself clenching my fists, I find myself crying, I find myself laughing, I find myself just remembering those dark times and those happy time, and it’s all just so emotional to me up at first when I watched the movie, I said, ‘Well, that was triggering,'” she explained. “When I finished watching the movie, I said that I feel inspired from my own story. I feel like I want to go work out, I feel like this movie and my story is going to change the entire world, and they’ll have a different perception of me, because the perception of me that they have may be wrong.”

“I want them to see this is the beginning, this is the middle, this is how we got here, this is what I had to go through. It wasn’t just win, win, win, win, no. I had to go through a lot of things in my childhood was the roughest part,” Shields continued. “So I am happy that the world will be able to get to see that so they can understand the type of woman that I am, because I’m very different.”

“The Fire Inside” hit many roadblocks in its journey to completion. Back in March 2020, two days after filming, the production was reportedly put on pause because of the global COVID-19 pandemic, which led to Universal Pictures subsequently dropping the film. Ice Cube, who was originally set to play Destiny’s co-star, Shields’ father-like coach Jason Crutchfield, stepped down from the role. And then the 2o23 actors-writers strikes further postponed the film’s release.

In addition to developing a newfound compassion for directors, Morrison shared that she also understands how directors have to literally maintain their fire inside to upkeep a momentum until a project reaches its finish line.

“I understand also just that the necessity for a singular vision that somebody can carry an idea from conception all the way through and now having been able to have that vision and champion it and advocate for it,” Morrison explained. “I probably didn’t realize at the time how solitary that could be sometimes where you’re just pushing long after your DP is off making other movies, once your editor goes on to the next thing, and now you’re working with your composer, and then your composer is done and now you’re working with the marketing team — but, like, you’re really championing this thing, pushing the boulder up a mountain sometimes for years.”

“The Fire Inside” is now playing in theaters.

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