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Chris Columbus knows a thing or two about directing movies for mainstream audiences. From Home Alone and Mrs. Doubtfire to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and Percy Jackson, Columbus possesses a gift for helming crowd-pleasing projects.

Part of the reason why Columbus has succeeded in Hollywood can be attributed to his mentor, Steven Spielberg, who bought and developed Columbus’ script for Gremlins. Advice from any Hollywood veteran is beneficial for a young filmmaker. However, learning lessons from arguably the greatest living American filmmaker helped propel Columbus’ screenwriting and directorial career to new heights.

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Speaking of Mrs. Doubtfire, Columbus worked with the late Robin Williams at the peak of his movie stardom. The story of a recently divorced man who disguises himself as an old British nanny to spend more time with his kids became a smash hit and the second-highest-grossing movie of 1993. Columbus learned about improvisation from Williams and applies those lessons to his films today.

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This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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Chris Columbus: That’s an impossible question because they all bring their own strengths to the role. I think The Thursday Murder Club really exists as four pieces of a whole. You can’t really separate one. One without the other is like Spider-Man without his Spidey sense. You need all four of them.

That is a good Switzerland answer.

[Laughs] Thank you.

As a director, you love forming connections with actors, and you love to collaborate with them. With actors so experienced like the award-winning ones you have in this cast, I could see some directors shying away from that and feeling intimidated. I know that’s not the case with you. How do you approach working with a group of prestigious actors?

Honestly, I approach working with actors kind of as a fan. When you look at the four of our actors, it’s like 160 years of British cinema. It’s intimidating. When I first walked into the rehearsal room, I was intimidated by the fact that these are some of the great actors working today. Some of the greatest actors I’m ever going to work with, so you have to up your game.

It’s probably what it’s like when, to use a sports analogy, you’re on a team and you’re playing like the best team; you have to be better. I said to myself, I have to be better at what I’m doing.

It pushes you to be better.

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What was it like having one of your mentors, Steven Spielberg, visit the set?

Well, Steven Spielberg is sort of responsible for my career in Hollywood. Steven was my mentor when I was a writer. Steven’s company [Amblin] is producing The Thursday Murder Club. I’ve never been a director and worked with Steven, so I was terrified. Suddenly, I’m the director working with possibly the greatest living director working today. I can’t mess up. I have to be at the top of my game.

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What was amazing about Steven is Steven came to the set as a fan. Steven took out his phone and was videoing me directing, and I thought that was kind of cool.StillMoving.Net / Netflix

That’s surreal.

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I was listening to one of your older interviews, and he [Spielberg] gave you advice. He took it from Billy Wilder — Don’t tell something to the audience more than once. I was wondering how you applied that to this film. 

It’s basically very simple, which is never tell the audience something you’ve already told them, or they’ll get bored. Inherently, it might be subconscious that they will get bored.

You can’t deliver the same emotion twice, you can’t deliver the same joke twice, and you certainly can’t deliver the same piece of information twice, or you will lose your audience. Even though they’re not aware of it, you’ll start to lose them.

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Robin Williams and John Candy were both incredibly generous people. By generous people, I mean generous actors. John Candy and Robin shared one thing in common, which was that they both would agree to do two or three scripted takes, so you could basically shoot the movie that was on paper.

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In Thursday Murder Club, for instance, Sir Ben Kingsley came to me the day before he was supposed to deliver a eulogy that was written and said, “I’ve made some changes.” He read the eulogy to me, and he made it better. I just thought you have to always listen as a director.

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We’re working on it. We’re actively trying to make a Mrs. Doubtfire documentary. The Mrs. Doubtfire documentary, at this stage, and documentaries take on a life of their own, is basically about Robin’s process.

He had such a unique process and such a, for lack of a better word, divine process in terms of how he worked that no one else I’ve worked with since has been like that. I wanted to show people exactly what his process was.Giles Keyte / Netflix

You worked with Pierce [in Mrs. Doubtfire]. He’s playing the straight guy. How did you know he could be the funny guy in this film[Thursday Murder Club]?

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I realized Pierce is an incredibly funny human being, and he’s a great comedic actor. So finally, after all these years, to be able to work with him is wonderful.

You’ve made a lot of crowd-pleasing movies. I know that some of your inspirations were ’70s movies — The Godfather, Dog Day Afternoon, [and] Serpico. Do you still want to make one of those ’70s gritty dramas?

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I’m impressed with those movies and inspired by them because of their performances. It’s not necessarily the genre. It’s the reality and the naturalistic quality of acting. I find those movies have the purest acting of any movies that I’ve ever seen.

You have experience adapting novels to the screen. What is the secret to it?

I can speak to adapting novels because I’ve done it successfully and I’ve done it unsuccessfully. You learn more from your failures. When the movies weren’t successful that were adapted from the novels, it was quite simple. I was not a fan of the novel. I didn’t love the novel to begin with, and I thought maybe I could make it better.

I fell in love with Harry Potter, and I fell in love with The Thursday Murder Club novels. My goal was to remain faithful to what existed in those novels and to bring the spirit of those novels to the screen. The secret is really being a super fan of the work.Giles Keyte / Netflix

How was collaborating with Richard [Osman]?

Richard Osman is truly the best collaborator in terms of a novelist that I’ve ever worked with. And that’s because I could call Richard on a Tuesday night before we’re ready to shoot a scene on Wednesday morning and say, “Richard, I need a few extra lines for this scene. The character of Ron doesn’t have as many things to say.” And within 30 minutes, Richard would send me so many variations of scenes. He was just a valuable collaborator.

I saw a picture. Is he the tallest human being out there?

Richard is very tall. He would have succeeded very well in the NBA.

You’ve had such a long and illustrious career. I was listening to an interview you did, and you talked about how directors don’t necessarily have the longest careers. They get rich and famous, they move into these mansions, and now they become secluded and go away from society. What’s the secret to keeping such a long career? How have you stayed in touch with reality after all these years?

Honestly, not many people know what I look like, and I don’t spend much time — outside of doing this kind of publicity — doing anything else in the public eye. I get to live a normal life, which means simple things — going to the grocery store, going to the gas station, going to the bookstore. I get to do everything. I just hang out like a normal human being, so I think that’s part of it.

I think part of moving into a mansion is that you suddenly have your housekeeper going out and doing your grocery shopping and taking in your laundry. Suddenly, you’re losing touch with everything. You’re not doing everything. When you started out as a filmmaker and as a student, you were doing everything on your own and making movies.

I think that’s the key. The key is not to lose any sense of reality. I think being in Manhattan is a really good place to live because you have to do everything yourself.

Well, if I ever get to that place where I can have a housekeeper, I’ll let you know if they end up doing all this stuff for me.

[Laughs] Definitely buy your own groceries.

You have such a good eye for emerging talent, and obviously, that comes from Steven Spielberg, who might be the best to ever do it. For you, it’s Siân Heder, Robert Eggers, and even Sean Wang on Didi. What is the key to finding young and emerging talent, and what makes you want to attach yourself to their projects and work with them?

In terms of Maiden Voyage Pictures, which is basically our company that allows first-time filmmakers to realize their dream of making their first feature, it’s about letting those filmmakers sort of be free. It’s like protecting them from potential studio voices that would interfere creatively and just nurturing them as filmmakers.

It’s interesting because at Maiden Voyage, we have sort of a three-strike rule. The script has to be great. The filmmaker personally has to be able to direct and be able to handle a crew. And they have to have made a short film or a film that’s good. By the time we get into business with any of these filmmakers, we realize that they’re working on a level of talent. It’s really not having the eye but understanding that these are talented people.

Someone like Sian Heder — we just knew from reading Tallulah that she was an incredibly talented director. Robert Eggers, it was The Witch. When we worked on The Witch, I knew Rob was someone I wanted to continue working with.

As a filmmaker myself … I took eight months of my career off as a writer and a director to be a producer on Nosferatu. I just sat back, and I was an active producer. I got to watch Robert Eggers work in a completely different style and a completely different way than I did. But that inspired me, and I took those lessons back and brought it to The Thursday Murder Club.

The Thursday Murder Club is now streaming on Netflix.