Actress Bryce Dallas Howard is following in her dad’s footsteps.
Just in time for Father’s Day, the “Jurassic World” star has made her directorial debut with the documentary “Dads” — a feature that celebrates fatherhood and dives into what it means to be a dad, according to ABC News.
“What I realized in interviewing all these guys is that we’re treating dads like they’re in the background when they’re not,” Howard told Today. “The vast majority of fathers are incredibly involved, present and committed. That needs to be acknowledged. It would be really hard for me to be a good mother when everyone assumed I wasn’t doing anything.”
For the documentary — which will be available to stream on Apple TV and via the Apple TV app starting June 19 — Howard explored the day-to-day lives of six fathers. She features her late grandfather, Rance, and her only brother, Reed. She also includes clips from celebrity dads like Will Smith, Neil Patrick Harris, Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon and, of course, her own dad, Ron Howard.
“I wasn’t supposed to be interviewed, I didn’t think,” Ron Howard told CBS News. “But I showed up one day, just to cheer my daughter along, and suddenly I was in front of the camera.”
Ron Howard, who is a producer for the documentary, told CBS News that fatherhood lessons from “The Andy Griffith Show” stuck with him well past his time on the show. Over the years, he often brought his family to movie sets. Bryce Dallas Howard even appeared as an extra on his TV show “Parenthood,” according to CBS News.
“It’s not so much what you say, it’s really showing up,” he told CBS News. “You just go all-in and say, ‘This is a priority. I’m going to very consciously do this right.’”
“Dads” first premiered last year at the Toronto Film Festival, where it received second runner-up for the People’s Choice Award for documentaries, according to the festival’s website.
Bryce Dallas Howard said she hopes the documentary helps fathers to not feel “so alone.”
“I realize that there was no rite of passage for the process of becoming a father,” she told CBS News. “Like, there’s a rite of passage for women — you have the baby shower, right? You obviously go through the transition of the birth. And we have excluded men from that narrative, from that incredible moment of transition in your life.
“Fathers are caregivers; that’s what they are,” she continued. “I just want dads to know that we see them. We see what they’re up to.”