‘Martha’ director R.J. Cutler on the ‘great privilege’ of telling Martha Stewart’s story — even if she didn’t always want him to

Acclaimed filmmaker R.J. Cutler wasn’t always planning to make a movie about Martha Stewart. Then, she came to dinner. 

“She basically crashed the dinner, and we sat and talked all night long about her life story,” Cutler tells Gold Derby. During their initial conversation, Cutler says he was surprised that Stewart grew up in “modest means” in suburban New Jersey, raised by first-generation American parents. 

“Her background was counter-intuitive to what I might have thought it would be,” Cutler says...