Williams has collaborated with director Kelly Reichardt on three critically-acclaimed projects, the most recent of which, Certain Women, was her big-screen return (alongside Manchester By The Sea) following a two-year break. The duo clearly have a close bond, but Williams revealed to The Guardian that it goes beyond a simple working relationship, admitting, "I am jealous of every other actor Kelly works with."
On Meek's Cutoff, their second collaboration, Williams even cried to her director about how she missed it when it was just them (on Wendy and Lucy). As she recalled, Reichardt replied unsympathetically, telling her, "Michelle, I have to deal with other people now. And cattle. Grow up." In an interview with TIME, Williams emphatically explained she keeps going back to Reichardt because, "Hers are the only movies that I'm in that I can watch and forget that it's me, because I get so absorbed by the filmmaking and the storytelling. She is singularly in pursuit of a kind of truth that I find really appealing."
