Traci Hays is a DGA award–nominated director known for crafting female-centric, genre-blending stories with a strong visual edge. She has two A&E Lifetime Original features slated for release in 2026: a true-crime thriller starring Stana Katic and an international holiday rom-com. Her previous directing credits include the Fox Entertainment-produced Tubi Original On the Run, winner of four Telly Awards and landed on Tubi’s Most Liked List; international dark comedy My Bloody Galentine, and psychological thriller Blood, Sweat and Cheer, named one of Tubi’s Top 10 Originals by Vulture and Screen Rant. We caught up to discuss her career and current projects.
Hi Traci, thanks for taking the time to speak with us. What was the moment you realized the film industry wasn’t just a dream, but a place you could actually enter? What did you have to unlearn about yourself to walk through that door?
I don’t think there was just one moment when I realized I wanted to get into the film business. I can recall three moments that stand out to me. I don’t know what came first, but I remember, for Christmas one year, I got the extended edition of Lord of the Rings, and I watched all 26 hours of the behind-the-scenes. That was really my introduction into what the film business is, and that you can have a job doing that. I was watching Peter Jackson directing and thinking to myself, I’ve been doing this with my siblings and acting in plays and putting on little shows with my neighborhood, and I didn’t realize that could be a job.
That definitely opened my eyes and made me so excited about the possibility of becoming a filmmaker. And then, I remember going to Universal Studios and going on the backlot tour, and just seeing all the behind-the-scenes of Jaws and the airplane crash from War of the Worlds. I just remember the feeling of being so captivated and mesmerized. It’s frankly a feeling I still get when I go on any backlot – just being a kid and wanting to use your imagination. And then the first film set I ever actually worked on as a teenager back in 2006 was in Northern California, called Palo Alto, starring Ben Savage, and I just remember getting to be on that set and just completely falling in love with every aspect of watching people work. I think I was just a PA or an intern, but I was just hooked, and that was when I knew I wanted to become a filmmaker.
In your first few years working on sets, what was the biggest lie you believed about how careers are built in film—and what did the reality teach you instead?
Starting out, I remember one of the biggest lies that I believed about myself in my career was that I looked too young to be taken seriously. There were definitely times on set where I should have stood up for myself and my worth, whether that was negotiating financially or my rate, but being in a room historically filled with mostly guys, I had to learn to really stand up for myself, and that your age is irrelevant to your creativity and your point of view and your voice. That was something that I learned over time, and, as my confidence grew, my understanding of how I learned to see myself in the world let me care less about opinions, because whether somebody thought I was old or young is irrelevant. I think in every stage of our lives, it’s never too late or too early to start – so that was something I really had to learn over time, and I’m glad that I’m past that now.
You were mentored by Randal Kleiser, Martha Coolidge, and John Badham. What’s one uncomfortable note or hard truth from any of them that still directs you today?
Yes, Randall, Martha, and John were so influential in mentoring me as I came up through film school, and I don’t know if I’d call it an uncomfortable truth, but more just advice that I remember still to this day very clearly that Martha Coolidge told me is that there is no such thing as being over prepared, so make sure you do your work in pre production and prep. That is something I take into account every day when I’m in between projects and prepping for the next thing, and it is still very much a part of my daily routine.
What do you think the industry still gatekeeps most effectively—money, relationships, taste, stamina, identity—and how have you personally had to navigate that gate?
I don’t think gatekeepers are going anywhere. They’ve been in the business forever, and for me, it’s just a matter of figuring out how to go around them. I think, over time, my strategy has shifted. At the beginning of my career, I was just trying to figure out how to get into the room and how that looked, and then once you’re in the room, it’s a matter of captivating the gatekeepers to then greenlight your project. I think that there are changes and strides that have been made towards who those gatekeepers are and who’s greenlighting things, and that is ultimately a big disconnect between what gets made and how it gets made. I do believe money and financing are a big hurdle still. It’s very much at the top of my list, in terms of getting anything made and having creative control and the finances and the resources to make the project, and when I navigate it, every project has its own ecosystem. So for me, it’s just about learning how to be as prepared as possible, and how to have those conversations to be in those rooms, and now that I’m able to have the experience of having those conversations, I feel that I’m ready to take that next step.
What’s a failure you still feel in your body—one you can’t neatly wrap in a motivational lesson—and how do you keep it from hardening you as an artist?
When I was finishing up my senior thesis in college, there were some last-minute changes I really wanted to make, and the perfectionist in me thought that because we had another hour, we could do the last couple of changes, and so I remember we made them, and it came the time to screen it on the big screen in the big Felino Theater at Chapman University. I was so excited, and everybody showed up, and we put in the DCP to play, and the sound was out of sync. I was mortified. I don’t recall why we didn’t do a test. It probably was because we turned it in at the 11th hour. So I was sitting in the theater, just thinking, there’s no way we could continue to watch this movie, as it’s audibly out of sync, and so I rushed up to the projection booths, and just said, “Hey, let’s, let’s stop”. We thankfully had another master of the film before I made those last-minute tweaks that ultimately made the film out of sync when we exported it, and so after our mini panic attack, we ended up playing the previous version – but that still gives me shivers thinking it, and I think it just reinforces a lesson that the perfectionist in me is continuing to work through, which is: you have to put pencils down, and you have to walk away, and a deadline is a deadline.
There’s always something I’m going to want to change and tweak, and tweak, and tweak. If I had all the time in the world, I think I would keep tweaking. So understanding that I have something to give, I’ve done the best with the time I’ve given, and to just release that and know that I did my best work, and that I’ll have an opportunity on the next thing to do something – that was definitely a lesson I had to learn, which was to be less of a perfectionist.
You’ve had major wins (Telly Awards, Top 10 Originals recognition, festival accolades). We all love the idea of awards. Has there been an achievement that’s surprised you or made you feel emptier than expected? If so, what did that reveal about what you truly value?
I’m truly honored and grateful for the various awards and accolades that my films have received over the years. That’s definitely not the reason I’m making my work; it’s more out of pure love of telling stories, but I think recently an achievement that has surprised me is telling people that I’ve directed six features in five years. I don’t know that I’ve stopped and really fully processed what that really means, and I just am beyond grateful that I’ve had that many opportunities in a very short amount of time. It’s just given me more perspective, frankly, to realize that I’ve put in the work and that I’ve arrived in a place in my career where there’s true momentum behind what I’m doing and people are leaning in and paying attention, and it just really makes me value all the hard work and over a decade plus of time that I’ve put in so far to just be able to be in a place where I’m able to take on that much in such a short amount of time.
After working on 30+ projects with A-list talent, what’s the hardest leadership decision you’ve had to make on set—where being “nice” and being “effective” couldn’t coexist?
I’ve had to make many difficult decisions over the years on my 30+ films. I think inherently the idea that you can’t be nice and effective is a maxim I actually don’t agree with, because I think inherently to be a good leader you have to remain calm and collected, and also approach each problem with grace and understanding. I find that people will respect you more when you hear the problem and hear their perspective and navigate each challenge with humility. I don’t know how else to say it, but there have been very challenging circumstances where I was able to take the individual side that was having a problem and hear their problem out, and just try to calm them down, hear their perspective. Being a good listener can go very far. That’s not to say I won’t stand up for myself and my crew, especially around safety; that is something I don’t take lightly. So when I feel a production is trying to take advantage, I have no problem being very firm.
Over a decade in production teaches you how to deliver—when did “being dependable” start to threaten your creativity, and how did you reclaim your voice from the machinery of production?
When people get the chance to work with me, I hope that they see that I’m dependable, relatable, flexible, and just have an overall good work ethic and am reliable. Day in and day out, I try to give all of me and my attention, and the work I put in – regardless of how many days I have to shoot, or how much money I have. I approach everything from that mindset. I wouldn’t say that it threatens my creativity. I’m just very aware that to be a working director and to make a living directing film and television, sometimes the need to find the job has gotten in the way of a creative headspace to think of a new idea or try not to get as stressed.
So for me, it’s exercising that mindset of focus and giving myself permission that the time that I’ve carved out for my creativity is part of my everyday. It’s like drinking water, and it’s something that your body needs, my soul needs, so it’s a concerted effort that I make on a daily basis, so that I don’t get lost in the weeds or the stress of having to find the next job and always going a million miles a second. I do make a concerted effort on a weekly basis to just take a deep breath, go for a walk, listen to some music, and just reflect, because it’s easy to get lost very quickly.
Kidnapped in Her Own Home: The Martha Carelli Story is inspired by a real case—how do you approach true-crime storytelling ethically, especially when the audience’s appetite for suspense can easily overshadow a victim’s humanity?
True crime has always fascinated me since a young age, and I was delighted to be able to take on the Martha Carrelli story, and to get an opportunity to dive into the true story aspect of it. It is centered around the writing of Ann Rule in the book Smoke Mirrors and Murder; the chapter is called The Painter’s Wife, and what I really appreciate about Ann’s writing is that she approached the court case as less of a straightforward murder mystery and more as a psychological survival thriller from the perspective of Martha, and that was something I haven’t seen in a true crime in that way before.
That influenced the conversations I had with Stana Katic, who played Martha, and how we were able to really lean into her empathy, her tactics, how she approached these clearly awful circumstances, and it was refreshing to be able to tell that perspective in less of a damsel-in-distress way, or a helpless female protagonist, but instead somebody who is the bedrock foundation of her family. The idea that this person in real life was a strong woman was the main thing that attracted me to even wanting to work on it – seeing that kind of female protagonist take matters into her own hands.
This film hinges on subtle clues, resilience, and a psychological chess match. What did you do, directorially, to make the tension feel earned rather than manufactured?
I’m so happy to hear that you saw the subtle clues and psychological chess game that amps up the tension in the film – that was very intentional. It started on the page, and then when we were filming on the day, I wanted to make sure we had the ability to hang in a moment. There was one particular moment that stands out to me when we first meet Michael Anderson, this character who’s invading the family, and he walks into frame, but we started slowly moving the camera in and letting the audience see the empty house; the moment when you hear the floor creak, and finally see him walk into frame, that was very intentional – I wanted us to feel how in one moment, the safety of your own home and that feeling of security was completely shattered for this family, and how frankly disturbing the invasion of privacy is for him to move around their home so freely.
That was what I wanted the audience to really feel, and I approached that through slow camera movements, and in the editing, the pacing was extremely important – to be able to sit with a moment, and let certain things get a little bit more quick, and then have a breath. To really ratchet up that tension, you needed to have that ability in the edit room to really allow for the breath, so that it didn’t feel manufactured.
The film earned a ReFrame Stamp. Beyond the headline, what changed on set because of that commitment—creatively, logistically, or culturally—and what do you wish more productions understood about inclusive hiring?
I’m beyond thrilled that our film received the Reframe Stamp from Women in Film and Sundance. When I was hired to direct the film, there was already a number of heads of department that were in talks and had been hired based on availability, and it was a pretty busy time, so we wanted to make sure we could lock in people before they got swept away on another job, but I was able to interview a number of people, and I really appreciated how my producers handled that whole process, and putting people who were qualified for the job, local to Atlanta, and understood the subject matter. They hired people based on their merit.
At the back of my head, I’m always thinking about how to bring more women into roles that are historically more male driven, and I just appreciated the way that all the hiring was handled on the film. It was very much based on merit, and when it came to filming, the set was incredibly collaborative. Everybody showed up with a smile on their face and genuinely wanted to be there. And that is such a huge thing that I’m always looking for in creating a safe space on set, where you know people are having fun, and they want to be there, because it is a lot of work. It is long hours. It is exhausting, and I just think that if more productions went into a project with the understanding of putting the best people for the job, not just to hire from the same list of people, but to really think about the subject matter, and that it is from a female perspective, making sure that the right people are there to represent the world that the film comes from.
You’re an activist and lead in multiple organizations. When has your advocacy complicated your career in a real, tangible way and why was it still worth it?
I’ve been so affected by the mentors that I’ve had in my life over the years, and feel like I’m in a place in my career where I want to give back to help emerging filmmakers in their careers, as I was helped. I don’t feel that doing that has complicated my career in any real tangible way at all, other than just my time management. I got involved with Moonshot Initiative, which is a wonderful female non-binary nonprofit that does all sorts of things, from a film challenge to different accelerated programs to really get in front of people in a real, tangible way. I’m also involved in the Children’s Heart Foundation, where we help raise awareness about congenital heart defects, and I’m also an advisor for the San Francisco International Film Festival for their mentors this year, which has been a real honor. Balancing all three of these commitments that I take seriously, has been challenging to navigate just from a time perspective, but other than that, I’m 100% there. I love seeing people make real connections that lead to real, tangible meetings that have come out of events that I’ve been able to host, and just to see talented women connect has just been an absolute pleasure. It is absolutely worth every effort and all the time that I put into it, and just seeing friendships blossom out of it makes me so excited to see how things continue to blossom with these various nonprofits.
Where can our readers find out more about you?
The readers can find out more about me and my work on my website, which is TraciHays.com. I’m also on Instagram and LinkedIn, and try to post on a regular basis, and so you can see what I’m up to there.
Photography by Jackie Rangel/Martha Carelli BTS 2 (Credit_ Lustr Studio)
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