Cinematographer. Harvard competitive fencer. Franco-phile. Christina Voros teams with pal James Franco again (Kink, The Broken Tower) to take on the house of Gucci with The Director.

Here, she spills about what scares her most, how Cambridge is like Brooklyn, and the hand Franco had in pulling back the curtain on the enchantress running the fashion label.

Why Gucci and Frida Giannini?
James [Franco] and I had been working together for a few years and had just finished a film on the making of Saturday Night Live. He had been working with Gucci for a few years and was interested in making a film about the creative process behind that curtain. I was born into a family of costume and couture designers. My first film, The Ladies, was a portrait of my two Hungarian great aunts who designed for the circus and opera in Hungary before moving to the states in 1956. So all of these things just dovetailed together as we began collaborating on the film.

Fashion takeaway tips?
Don’t shoot in stilettos.

What inspires your passion for capturing a scene?
I came out of a verite documentary film background, so I’m always conscious of the camera as a participant in the room, not always an active one, but an element that changes the dynamic subtly. I love working with light but am even more inspired by the geography of camera movement and the choreography of the dance between a lens and its subject.

Cinematographer/film has the most influence on your work?
I’ve been inspired by a lot of brilliant filmmakers, but in documentary the Maysles are a touchstone for me. In narrative, Anthony Dod Mantle, Rodrigo Prieto, and Bob Richardson are my cinematography gods.

Brooklyn has attracted a young population of artists over the past decade. As a Brooklynite, what makes the borough special?
It’s funny; I grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts. And Brooklyn is to Manhattan [what] Cambridge is to Boston. It feels like an incubator for the creative and offbeat, feeding off the energy of the “big city” but growing its own strong personality, like a younger sibling that needs to be bold and brassy to hold her own.

I love living there, because you have the luxury of going into the city and all it offers, but you don’t have to. I’ll go several weeks not leaving Brooklyn. And it’s getting cool enough and hip enough that my friends in Manhattan are now happy to come out here. Four years ago, people would say, “You want me to come to Brooklyn? Sure, let me check the flights!”

What scares you? What film projects scare you?
Fear scares me. It sneaks up on you for all different reasons, but most of the time they’re not good ones. Every decision that I regret was one made in fear. Ultimately, the only way to diffuse it is to take a deep breath, stare it down, and not let it change your course.

There are two kinds of fear for me in film. There’s the fear that comes before you start something that you’ve never done before. Not even a fear but an uncertainty of the unknown. This is a good thing for me; it’s exciting; it means you’ll come out on the other side wiser and stronger.

The other fear is something that creeps up on you midstream. Often it comes masquerading as doubt, and it shows up in many shapeshifting forms. Discovering that you can’t see eye to eye with someone on a creative collaboration can be scary, because sometimes it’s just not surmountable. And sometimes you don’t realize it’s coming, like running aground on an iceberg. I like projects that scare me before I start and move me enough to forget that fear as soon as we’ve taken sail.

Describe your ideal Saturday morning.
Waking up on the ranch, feeding the horses with a cup of coffee in my hand, reading the newspaper on the trampoline, and going for a ride in the mountains with my fella.

Quick Fire:
Yankees or Red Sox? Red Sox
Bench or stoop? Stoop
Wide shot or close-up? Super wide or super close
Chocolate or vanilla? White chocolate
Day-Glo or neutrals? Day-Glo

Tribeca Film Festival runs through April 28. For Director tickets and showtimes, go to tribecafilm.com. Want more Woman Behind the Lens? Get to know Kat Coiro, Enid Zentelis, and Jenee LaMarque. For more movies, check out our monthly must-sees, GoWatchIt channels, or The Roundup.

Photos: John Lamparski / WireImage / Getty Images; Courtesy of Tribeca Film Festival