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ames Vanderbilt has written and produced over 20 films, including such diverse projects as David Fincher's Zodiac, for which he was nominated for a Writers Guild of America Award for Best Adapted Screenplay; The Amazing Spider-Man films; the Murder Mystery films; White House Down and Scream. As a director, Vanderbilt's debut film was the drama Truth, which starred Cate Blanchett and Robert Redford. His sec- ond film, Nuremberg, is another gripping drama, set in the immediate aftermath of World War II. As the world grapples with the horrors of the Holocaust, US Army psychiatrist Lt. Col. Douglas Kelley (Rami Malek) is assigned the task of assessing the mental state of Hermann Göring (Russell Crowe), the notorious former Reichsmarschall and Hitler's second in command, along with other high-ranking Nazi officials, while the Allies — led by the unyielding chief US prosecutor, Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson (Michael Shannon), navigate the monumental task of creating an unprecedented interna- tional tribunal to ensure the Nazi regime answers for its atrocities. To make the film, Vanderbilt assembled a team that included DP Dariusz Wolski, editor Tom Eagles and post supervisor Ryan Price. Here, in an exclusive interview with Post, he talks about the challenges involved and his love of post. It's been a decade since you directed Truth. Were you waiting for the right project for your second film? "I found this film before I directed Truth and was developing them a little bit in tandem. It's based on the 2013 book 'The Nazi and the Psychiatrist' by Jack El-Hai. He sent me this short book proposal, I read it and it was the quickest I ever said yes to anything in my life. It just ticked every box for me and pulled me in im- mediately. But then writing the screen- play took several years, as an enormous amount of research went into this and I kept discovering new stories. The book covers the story of Göring and Kelley, and I realized during research that the movie was changing and growing into a three-hander, as it had to also follow the story of Robert H. Jackson. Then, getting the financing took a long time until we got Russell Crowe attached. He just dove in with both feet and stuck with us." What did prep entail and what were the main technical challenges of pulling it together? "The big one was figuring out how to shoot it and capture the scope of post- war Nuremberg and Europe, and the de- struction, and then seeing the courtroom being rebuilt. We ended up in Budapest, which was really a gift because they have fantastic crews, construction teams and stages. They can build anything, and we knew we had to build a lot on stages, in- cluding the courtroom and the prison, all accurate within an inch of their original dimensions. But then when we went out- side, we needed locations that had both pre- and post-war European architecture that could feel Germanic. So, we did a lot of scouting, casting, and all of it was (a) mammoth undertaking." The film looks great. Tell us about working with Dariusz Wolski. "Dariusz was such a gift. He's always busy shooting Ridley Scott movies, but he wanted to try something different. He read the script and we met and he was on board. We talked about how we want- ed to shoot it classically, and for it to be simple and to feel beautiful, but we didn't want it to feel like a period film shot in 1946. We wanted it to feel as modern as possible because I wanted younger people, who don't have a sense of that period, to be transported into it and to feel that it was alive and not some dusty piece of history." How hard was the shoot? "Every shoot can be difficult and hard. It was definitely joyous. We ended up shooting 49 days, and we had to move very quickly because it was a long, 130- page script. We were shooting five-day weeks, not the crazy six-day weeks, where you shoot 17 hours a day. It's im- portant to me that the crew is happy and excited to be there, and we were on the sets for two or three weeks to get all the prison and courtroom scenes, and then we didn't have to travel too far for the lo- cations. I think our farthest location was about an hour-and-a-half away. So, we built it production-wise to be sustainable within the city." Where did you post? "All in Los Angeles. We rented offices in Woodland Hills, and we had a great post team, led by Ryan Price, our post super- visor, who was incredible. Tom Eagles was our editor, and it was just a fantastic post team all the way down." Tell us about working with Tom. Was he on-set or did you send dailies? "We sent dailies. The reason I wanted to work with Tom is that, apart from being a brilliant editor, I really wanted someone who had experience not just with heavy things, but with lighter things. I knew that the dramatic things would work, but it was very important to me that we made sure we also had lighter, maybe even humorous moments that played against JAMES VANDERBILT - NUREMBERG A GRIPPING DRAMA SET IN THE IMMEDIATE AFTERMATH OF WWII J DIRECTOR'S CHAIR www.postmagazine.com 10 POST JAN/FEB 2026 BY IAIN BLAIR Actor Leo Woodall and Vanderbilt, on-set.