Barry ready to return to work

Two months after his Moonlight pulled out a last-second, best picture win at the Oscars, director Barry Jenkins says “it’s time to work.”

“You live your whole life — not for this moment, but to have a career. So I have a career now. So I’m going to keep going with it,” Jenkins said on Thursday at the Los Angeles premiere of the Netflix series

He directed an episode of the series — which looks at race relations and identity on a college campus — in the middle of last year’s Hollywood awards circuit promotional push for Moonlight, which also earned Academy Awards for best supporting actor and best adapted screenplay.

“So my only 10 days off were the 10 days I spent directing this episode. Which was really cool — it was a really good experience,” Jenkins said.

Since the Oscars, Jenkins says he spent a month in Mexico.

“I went to Uxmal, which are the Maya ruins. And it was amazing. You talk about being humbled. I grew up in Miami. A 90-minute flight from Miami, there are these pyramids — this whole civilisation, this city that pre-existed ours in America. Wonderful, man,” he said.

—AP