Jeff Hamada: How did you suddenly become Hollywood’s go-to artist for film posters?

James Jean: I’m not sure how I got so lucky. What’s interesting is that each request happened independently of one another and around the same time – it wasn’t as if I was hired because the director saw a previous poster I had done. In fact, I had not done any official movie posters before. There must have been a confluence of factors that lead them to think of me, a mentalist’s string of subliminal hints that influenced these visionary directors to choose me to interpret possibly the most significant films of this year.

One factor might be the rise in popularity of alternative collectible movie posters these past 10 years or so. Darren called me directly and Guillermo slid into my dm’s, and both were working on films that were intensely personal and meaningful. The marketing people at Warner Bros. contacted me about Blade Runner 2049 a little later on, which is still kind of amazing because I was harboring this fantasy of doing a poster for them ever since the movie was announced.

Jeff Hamada: You kinda jokingly called this a trilogy but something tells me there will be more. What’s next? I’d love to see you do a poster for The Killing of a Sacred Deer. The film looks insane.

James Jean: Yeah, I really liked The Lobster so I’m very keen to see the Sacred Deer when it comes out. The reason why I probably won’t do any more posters this year is because I’m busy working on my next solo show at Kaikai Kiki Gallery in Tokyo. Also, it’s hard to top Aronofsky, Del Toro, and Villeneuve, all in one season.

Jeff Hamada: Yeah pretty tough! I know you got the script for mother! and actually screened The Shape of Water, but Blade Runner was the only one where you weren’t given much information. Was it difficult to work blind like that?