'Tragedy Of Macbeth': Joel Coen Talks About The “Weird” Situation Of Making A Film Without His Brother

When it was announced that Joel Coen was going solo to direct his first feature film without his brother Ethan Coen, with “The Tragedy of Macbeth,” people were surprised. Did this mean the end of the Coen Brothers, one of the best filmmaking duos of all time? Or was this just a one-off project that would act as a placeholder until the duo could combine forces once again? Well, according to Joel Coen, the fact that he is directing ‘Macbeth’ solo came about much more naturally than that and was far from a calculated move.

Speaking to Deadline, filmmaker Joel Coen talked about the situation he found himself in working on a film without his brother, Ethan Coen. The director admitted that it felt “weird,” but ultimately, “The Tragedy of Macbeth” is a project that naturally led to Joel Coen working solo for the first time in his filmmaking career.

“There were moments when I missed him,” said Joel Coen about his filmmaking brother. “You don’t do something for 35 years with someone and then all of a sudden go off and do it by yourself, especially since it was without exception a productive and wonderful collaboration that I’ve had with him on all of those movies. So, yeah, there were plenty of times when I missed Ethan.”

Joel Coen explained that fans have to understand that just because they’re a filmmaking duo doesn’t mean they have all the same interests and tastes. And when it came to adapting “Macbeth,” Coen knew that it wasn’t going to be something Ethan would be interested in.

“Not like we don’t have different interests and different ideas and predilections and all the rest of it,” he added. “After 35, almost 40 years of working with my brother, we both were like, you know, we’re getting on. There are things that we want to do that we kind of take a break from each other and we pursue other things, and I think that this play in particular, doing Shakespeare is probably something that Ethan wouldn’t have been as interested in doing. And he’s doing things now that I’m not that interested in doing, and we’ve always done that when we aren’t making movies.”

So, for those people concerned that Joel and Ethan Coen are splitting up and will never make a film together again, you probably are being a bit too presumptuous. “The Tragedy of Macbeth” is just a project that Joel Coen wanted to make and Ethan Coen decided to take a backseat on. Nothing wrong with that.

“The Tragedy of Macbeth” makes its debut at the New York Film Festival and will arrive in theaters on December 25.