Famously reclusive director Terrence Malick prefers to stay behind the camera, not in front of it. So it was quite a surprise when TMZ actually managed to turn the camera on him on Saturday night, when the photo-shy director was incidentally filmed walking down a Hollywood street alongside actor Benicio del Toro. In fact, at first TMZ didn’t recognize the figure in the background, until Collider realized what they’d captured, and sites like Vulture and the Hollywood Reporter soon picked it up.

It’s worth watching the video in full to see Malick squirm and twirl in an attempt to avoid the camera (Del Toro seems to realize the humor of the situation):

Malick has historically refused nearly all photographs, even declining to appear at the Academy Awards and to accept the Palme d’Or for The Tree of Life, but this isn’t the first time Malick has been recorded on film. He was also captured shooting his new film Lawless with Christian Bale at Austin City Limits, and he even gave himself a small part in his first film Badlands. Still, Malick is spotted so rarely offset that it’s fair for TMZ to call him, in an update to their video, “a Hollywood Bigfoot.”

Previously
Name That Thistle: Terrence Malick Cutaway or Nature Documentary?
What Terrence Malick Meant with Tree of Life’s Dinosaurs, Revealed
Terrence Malick and Marilynne Robinson: Kindred Spirits?