There’s not a lot that the writer, director, producer and cinematographer Mr Cary Joji Fukunaga doesn’t do well. As a young man growing up in Northern California, he nearly became a professional snowboarder, until an injury laid him up and gave him time to pursue a secondary (or perhaps tertiary, after snowboarding) passion: filmmaking and the theatre.

His first feature, the wildly ambitious Spanish-language thriller Sin Nombre (Mr Fukunaga is of Japanese and Swedish heritage, by the way), won him the directing award at Sundance in 2009, proving that he was pretty good behind a camera, too. His first adventure in television, with the first season of True Detective, is certainly among the greatest television shows ever made; and his hallucinogenic Maniac, from 2018, starring Mr Jonah Hill and Ms Emma Stone as pharmaceutical drug guinea pigs, is one of the hardest to classify. In between, he went to the Congo with Mr Idris Elba to make Beasts Of No Nation, a scalding story about child soldiers, during which he contracted malaria.

But it isn’t as if he is exactly averse to risk: he took on one of the most fraught productions in history, the forthcoming James Bond movie No Time To Die, and, after navigating a challenging production schedule, is now reckoning with a delayed film release date due to a certain global pandemic.

That, however, is what a great director does: navigate the whack-a-mole, everything-that-can-go-wrong timeline of a production, while making decisions based on a particular point of view or taste. And Mr Fukunaga has terrific taste (in sushi, in clothes, paintings and wine). So, in between trips out to Pinewood Studios, where he is cutting the 25th 007 film, he met us in London to throw a few outfits together, and help us with our personal mood boards for the spring along the way. (Unsurprisingly, the modelling thing is something else that he does well.) Here are a few bits of wisdom from a real-life man of mystery.

**01. What do you always have in your refrigerator? **

Water.

02. Are you a host or a guest? What’s the key to being the best one?

A guest. Bring good wine and some mildly controversial chat.

03. What is your pet peeve?

Repeating myself.

04. If you had one superpower, what would it be?

To stop time. That would have been useful on this film.

05. What is your ultimate indulgence?

Top-grade sushi.

06. What is cool?

Clogs and socks. It’s an uphill battle convincing people, but it’s the future.

07. What is your fitness regimen?

Sports, when I can. If not, I try to work out with a personal trainer three times a week. There was no time to work out on the Bond shoot.

08. What’s the first thing you do in the morning?

Press snooze.

09. Do you have a grooming regimen?

No skincare or grooming regimen. I’ve been considering moisturising at some point, though.

10. Around whom are you starstruck?

Tom Stoppard.

11. What event, in any era, do you wish you had witnessed?

Too many to count. I used to take part in reenactment groups growing up, specifically the American Civil War. Then I went on to major in history, but I think listening in on the Potsdam Conference would have been fascinating.

12. With which fictional character do you most identify?

Maybe Alessandro in A Soldier Of The Great War [by Mr Mark Helprin].

13. Which movie would you like to remake?

Beau Geste, but set in a contemporary war.

14. Do you have any recurring dreams? What happens?

That I can play the cello, and sometimes speak languages that I don’t actually speak, and quite often just being so tired that, in the dream, I want to go to sleep.

15. What is your vice?

Top-grade sushi.

16. Do you have any secret talents?

Crosswords, Rubik’s Cube and polo.

17. If you weren’t making films and television, what would you most like to do with your life?

Professional adventurer. Whatever it is that those people who seem to always be travelling and looking like they are living their best life do, even if it’s totally fake. I want that fake life.

18. What advice would you give a 13-year-old Cary?

A lot of dating advice.

**19. Do you collect any art? **

I love Makiko Kudo. Her canvases and colour palettes are just extraordinary.

**20. Do you collect anything else? **

Old guitars.

21. What is your earliest memory?

Sitting on the kitchen floor in my diaper during a dinner party. I’m pretty sure dishes were being done right over my head, so I must have been leaning against the sink cupboard.

**22. Who were you in a past life? **

I’ll have to speak to my psychic about that one.

**23. What would be your last meal? **

Spaghetti al pomodoro with parmesan and a very good glass of red wine – assuming top-grade sushi is not an option for the third time.

24. What’s the last thing you bought?

A tea caddy.

25. What’s your most treasured possession?

My Japanese Hanko stamp.

**26. What’s your favourite piece of clothing? **

My clogs.

27. What is your perfect day?

A hike in the Dolomites in Italy, followed by a long meal and good wine with friends who talk over each other.

28. Perfect holiday or getaway?

I don’t like to sit around on a sunbed, I like to explore. But after this job, I’m considering sitting in a dark room for 10 days.

29. When do you leave a party?

This year? No time to party.

**30. Sneakers or boots? **

Boots.

31. Coffee or tea?

Oat milk matcha latte.

32. Seaside or mountains?

Seaside.

33. What skill do you wish you had?

To play the cello and speak languages I don’t know.