No Twitter, no Instagram, no TikTok, no Fortnite. No viral videos, no FaceTime follies, no tedious group texts, no apps of any kind. For those addicted to social media, the prospect of disconnecting entirely may seem daunting, even nightmarish. But for anyone who ever dreamed of Walden Pond -or simply crawled under the covers at the thought of a Zoom bar mitzvah- the allure of director Anthony Russo’s off-the-grid cabin in the Angeles National Forest is undeniable.
“The place is less than an hour from my office downtown, but you feel like you’ve traveled far, far away from Los Angeles. It’s a radically different reality,” says Russo, who, along with his brother Joe, has directed four installments in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, including Avengers: Endgame and Captain America: Civil War. “The cabin gives me the opportunity to kidnap my kids for the weekend, bring friends up, or simply do some writing and other creative work in blissful solitude,” he explains.