The American director on the 20-year project he is just beginning, how hitmen don’t exist in real life and why his career would not be possible today

The American director Richard Linklater has one of the great, eclectic film-making CVs: from classics such as Dazed and Confused to School of Rock, Before Sunrise to Boyhood, which was filmed with the same cast over 12 years. That versatility is seen again in his latest movie, Hit Man, released earlier this year to critical and audience acclaim and now on Netflix. A rare foray for him into the comedy-thriller genre, it tells the trueish story of a nondescript college professor (an excellent Glen Powell) who has a side hustle as an undercover operative for the New Orleans police, pretending to be different hitmen in order to elicit arrests. Next year he releases Nouvelle Vague, shot entirely in French. Linklater is 64 and lives in Austin,...