Chris Columbus, the guest on this episode of The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast, was behind some of the most beloved and successful family films of all time. Among others, he wrote 1984’s Gremlins and 1985’s The Goonies, and he directed 1990’s Home Alone and 1992’s Home Alone 2: Lost in New York — both Christmas classics — as well as 1993’s Mrs. Doubtfire and 2001’s Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and 2002’s Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Which makes it all the more surprising and interesting that now, at the age of 66, he has produced — with Eleanor Columbus, his daughter and partner in Maiden Voyage Productions, an incubator for young filmmakers — Robert Eggers’ terrifying new horror film Nosferatu, which stars Nicholas Hoult, Lily-Rose Depp and Bill Skarsgård, and which Focus will release on Christmas Day.

Over the course of a conversation at the L.A. offices of The Hollywood Reporter,...