Sullivan helmed the season 12 episodes Can You Hear Me? and The Haunting of Villa Diodati in 2020.

By Patrick Cremona

Published: Monday, 28 August 2023 at 10:19 AM


One of the directors of Netflix’s upcoming live-action One Piece series has explained how working on Doctor Who helped secure her a job on the new show.

Emma Sullivan helmed the season 12 episodes Can You Hear Me? and The Haunting of Villa Diodati in 2020 and is now one of four directors who worked on the new adaptation of the popular anime. And in a recent interview, she revealed her previous credits were instrumental in convincing producers that she was the right fit for the gig.

“I guess I was in the running for it because I had done Doctor Who and The Watch, so I had done IP that’s fantasy before,” she told Collider.

“But also, I had worked in Cape Town with a film in Africa, as well, which is where we shot it. So that brought me to it.”

Sullivan added that although she was not previously familiar with One Piece, a conversation with her son convinced her that the new series was going to be a big deal.

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“I said, ‘Oh, there’s a show about a rubber pirate…’ and he was like, ‘One Piece?’” she explained. “And that’s when I realised how big One Piece was.

“That’s when I thought, ‘Oh, I’ve got to be really careful here.’”

One Piece (2023)

Sullivan previously explained to RadioTimes.com that original creator Eiichiro Oda had requested some changes during production on the live-action series.

“You want them [the fans] to be happy, you know, but I think the only way we can do that is to make Oda happy,” she said. “When he saw stuff that he didn’t like, we redid it.

“So he’s the leader really, and I think if Oda says he’s happy with it, then the fans will be happy. But you know, we just hope we did our best.”