Cuarón admits he was “a little reluctant to do it” when the opportunity to take on the world of Harry Potter first came his way, but making the film was one of the most rewarding experiences of his career.

Harry Potter: Two of most beautiful years of my life

“I learned so much,” he continued. “I had no idea about visual effects before, but then after Harry Potter it was like second nature. And the whole collaborative work with people who were at the very top of their games — the best production designer, the best cinematographer, like amazing people working together.”

“I had written Children of Men before, and nobody wanted to do it,” he said. “Then I did Harry Potter, and after, I was able to make Children of Men. So, I have nothing but gratitude towards Harry Potter,” he said.

Cuaron: Father and Son

Cuarón made his first trip to South Korea this week to attend the Busan festival, Asia’s leading cinema event, alongside his filmmaker son Jonás Cuarón, who is presenting his latest feature, Campeón Gabacho, at the event.

After attending an Imax screening of his contemporary sci-fi classic Gravity, the elder Cuarón sat down for a master class discussion moderated by Korean director Yeon Sang-ho, best known internationally for his zombie movie sensation Train to Busan.

The two directors became acquaintances after that film’s success, with Cuarón later executive producing Yeon’s 2025 mystery thriller Revelations.

Cuarón said that age and experience have taught him “to prepare and to be ready for things, but at the same time to accept what life brings.”

“That’s when life takes you to incredible places that you would not have expected,” he said, adding, “In that sense, I think the filmmaking process is very connected to the process of life.”

Cuarón said his penchant for long takes derives from his interest in creating opportunities for instinct and “cinematic miracles” within a process of obsessive technical preparation.

Long, Continuous Takes

“I like to shoot very long, continuous takes, because there’s only so much you can control,” he explained. “There’s one thing that you can never control inside those shots, and that is time. Time is flowing completely differently from take to take. The positions, the relationship between actors and camera, and how the light is changing. That’s also the reason I like to shoot natural light as much as possible, because of the accidents of light, the accidents of weather.”

He added: “You have a clarity of what you’re looking for, and then life is just going to not give you that — it’s going to give you something even better, something that you couldn’t have thought of.”

Learning from Every Film Experience

“The rule is that every time I finish a film, I try to dissect what I learned on that film — because I really believe that the only reason to make a film is for what you learn for the next one. Success has nothing to do with the results at the box office, or with critics or awards. It’s about what you learned and how you grow as a filmmaker.”

In comments evocative of his recent support of his friend Alejandro González Iñárritu’s poorly received new feature Digger, Cuarón argued that a film’s ultimate value takes time to be perceived.

Children of Men: Critical Status Then and Now

Yeon later told Cuarón that when he began making films as a younger man, he did so in an attempt to understand the world.

“But at a certain point, filmmaking made me realize just how little I understand about life. After making films for so many years, has your way of seeing the world become clearer, or has it become more ambiguous?”

Embracing Life