Jean-Marc Vallee knows how to get the attention of a room full of international press the morning after an opening gala party in Mexico’s premiere party town.

“He was hitting on me,” the famed Quebecois director recalled of meeting future Dallas Buyers Club star Jared Leto, for the first time. In “Rayon” mode, Leto laid his charm on Vallee full-force for their first meeting, so much so that Vallee “thought it was a joke.”

But, Vallee allowed, it worked: “He managed to seduce the director, not the man.”

Leto had been on hand in Cabo the night prior for the Los Cabos International Film Festival opening-night tribute to Vallee and the Mexican premiere of Demolition, the director’s latest film. The festival is also screening two previous Vallee features, C.R.A.Z.Y and Cafe de Flore.

Nabbing the first post-TIFF screening of Vallee’s film was clearly a coup for the festival, which has a mandate to bring together Canadian, U.S. and Mexican films to screen, and sell, south of the U.S. border. Combining public-facing festival and market, Los Cabos is now in its fourth year and its second Vallee Mexican premiere, the first of which was Dallas.

While Los Cabos general director Alonso Aguilar seemed genuinely a fan, Vallee is also on a hot streak in Hollywood right now, the ideal embodiment of a festival intended to span all three North American countries. But Vallee was the ideal tribute for another reason, because as Los Cabos launched its “Cabos TV” program this year — and Vallee will soon turn his eye to the medium via a new project for HBO.

Big Little Lies stars and was brought to screen by Vallee’s Wild collaborator Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman (“I’ll be directing my two producers,” he joked). Vallee’s filmmaking partner Nathan Ross is also attached to produce.

He confirmed he will direct three episodes of the David E. Kelley-penned limited series, which Deadline.com recently called “one of the highest-profile limited series packages to come together for HBO since True Detective.”

“I’m approaching this like I’m shooting a feature,” he said. “I’m directing the first two episodes and I’ll be back for the last one.”

“The female characters are so strong, powerful and so interesting,” he continued. “No wonder it’s coming from Reese. She has a mission to find material to find great female characters.”

It will likely be Big Little Lies – or two other unnamed projects he referenced being attached to as a director only – that hold Vallee up from a return to making his next film in Canada, for which he said he has two post-Cafe de Flore scripts in his back pocket and which he’d like to pursue in two to three year’s time.

But aside from the obvious comforts of shooting from home, the filmmaker seemed most intrigued and excited by the prospects and opportunities now laid out before him. “The States is opening doors to [outside] talent,” he said, referencing his key foundational years making French-Canadian film and how it helped him access Hollywood.

“I’m in a place where I can work from home in my own language, I can work in the States and I can work in France,” he said.

“But I’ll be back home.”

Photo credit: DFree / Shutterstock.com