Zach Snyder on the inability of art to give meaning

He found no solace in the work

Zach Snyder is the director of comic book movies, including 300, Watchmen, Man of Steel, and Justice League. This is taken from an interview with Wired magazine in 2023.

Your daughter Autumn’s death by suicide. Which happened at the tail end of Justice League, right?

Yeah, during postproduction, and I found no solace in the work. The life I created for myself was of no comfort to this other experience.

You know, if we’re honest with ourselves, in what we pursue, we hope that pursuit will have some catharsis for us in the struggles that we have in our lives. And I just think that was the darkest time, because I felt like I turned to the thing that I love and it turned its back on me as well.

Do you mean the work wasn’t giving you solace? Or are you referring to your relationship with the studio?

I think it might have been the studio, but also it was the work itself. Where I was with the project, and my relationship with the studio, that experience offered me nothing. Any kind of healing was impossible, and so therefore I had no interest in continuing with it.

That was a real break for me. You live under this illusion that your art, and the way you express yourself, is a kind of therapy that you can always rely on. And then when the rubber hits the road, you’re like, oh, no, it’s not helpful at all.

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