Kelly Marcel never wanted to be a director. “I'm much, much happier sitting in my pajamas at home behind my computer screen,” she tells Inverse. And yet, here she is at a fancy hotel in midtown Manhattan on a Sunday morning, definitely not wearing pajamas, and answering questions about her directorial debut — Venom: The Last Dance.
Marcel talks like a writer, speaking in full, thoughtful sentences with barely an “um” or “like” in sight. After interviewing her for 20 minutes, it’s easy to see how she’s risen so quickly from an unknown screenwriter working at a video rental store in London to the secret weapon behind Sony’s most successful Spider-Man franchise (aside from the ones that actually feature Spider-Man). Now, as the Venom trilogy comes to a close, Marcel has made the leap from writer to director — with plenty of encouragement from her star and longtime conspirator Tom Hardy.
