Veteran TV director and Canneseries juror Lesli Linka Glatter opened up about Netflix’s political thriller “Zero Day.”
Showing the aftermath of a shocking cyberattack, it stars Robert De Niro.
“Before I met Bob, I was really panicked. Here I am, working with a legend – what will it be like to direct him? It was awesome. He’s an actor who wants to be directed, and he delivered a great performance. It was very interesting to work with Bob at this time, because he speaks out against Trump all the time and the right hates him. Trump hates him.”
She directed all six episodes.
“The biggest fear is that there will be a ‘zero day’ event that takes down every industry simultaneously. We wanted to look at this. Would America behave any differently to how it did after 9/11, when we went to war with the wrong country? Would we stop and investigate, and find out what was really going on? Don’t answer that question.”
During a masterclass moderated by Variety, Glatter talked about decades-spanning career and had the audience in stitches – especially when recalling a certain moose head from “Twin Peaks.”
“Being around David Lynch is pretty iconic. He ate the same thing for lunch every single day: tuna fish on white bread. There was a scene where Michael Ontkean and Kyle MacLachlan are in a bank vault, and there’s a moose head on the table. No one ever says anything about it. I asked David: ‘How did you get the idea to put the moose head on the table?’ He just looked at me and went: ‘It was there’.”
She added: “Something cracked open for me [as a director]. Have your plan. Know exactly what you want. But be open to the moose head on the table. Be open to life.”
“Twin Peaks” was Glatter’s first series following Spielberg’s anthology “Amazing Stories.”
“It was Steven who told me never to look down on TV as a lesser medium. He said: ‘You have to tell a visual story, and it doesn’t matter what the delivery system is.’ That was the best advice. Oh, and listen to your instincts. If you tell your instincts to shut up, they will. And they won’t talk to you anymore.”
She listened to them when making her first short “Tales of Meeting and Parting.” It ended up being nominated for an Academy Award.
“Everyone’s story is different. Mine started in Tokyo, back in the good old days when the American government actually cared about the arts and thought that cultural exchange was a positive thing for human beings,” she said.
A longtime dancer, Glatter went to Japan to choreograph and perform, only to meet a Buddhist monk in a café.
“I was 25. He was about 80. Three years into knowing him, he told me a series of stories I knew I had to pass on. I also met my first filmmaker in Japan – George Miller! – and he said: ‘That’s a film’.”
She followed “Twin Peaks” with “Homeland,” “Mad Men,” “True Blood” or “ER,” earning nine Emmy nominations along the way.
“It sounds like it has been easy. It hasn’t been easy. But one always learns. Every time I start something new, it’s like I’m starting all over again. And I love that,” she said.
“I come from dance, where you make absolutely no money. You do it because it’s your passion. I would get offered these big, horrible movies, and I would go: ‘This is fucking stupid.’ Is that a good career choice? I don’t know. But that’s how I make decisions, which drives my agents crazy.”
That’s how she ended up directing “Mad Men,” too.
“My agents did not want me to do this show because it was on AMC – and nobody watched AMC. I loved these characters, who are morally complicated and complex, and they’re not what they appear to be. Don Draper is a man who created who he is – and that’s America.”
As a director, she’s not afraid to talk to actors.
“And that tends to be the one thing people are scared of. For me, it’s all about the story. What are the themes? What does each character want in a scene? What motivates them? I come in, having done all that homework, and then I want to know what they think.”
“Jon Hamm already knows who Don Draper is. But he still needs to be directed, so you need to understand what this scene is about. Actors show us something about the human condition. I love them, so I’ll be whatever they need me to be: mum, dad, or a therapist.”
Or an investigative journalist, like on “Homeland.”
“I don’t think you could make this show now, given what’s going on in the U.S. But at that time, the writers, Claire Danes, Mandy Patinkin and I would meet with the heads of the CIA, DNI and NSA, and basically ask them: ‘What keeps you up at night? What are your deepest fears for America and for the world’?”
“I’ve met so many spooks. Once, we were talking to an actor who was going to play the head of the GRU [Russia’s military intelligence agency]. He went: ‘Guys, I hate to stop you, but I was with Mossad.’ We were telling a spy how to be a spy.”
When it comes to TV, people often forget about directors. And that’s a mistake.
“It’s a team sport, and you’re only as good as your team. This concept of a showrunner is a really tricky one. I’ve been blessed to work with maybe five showrunners who are brilliant writers and who also know how to make a show. Those are very different skill sets, but in the U.S. they have somehow been lumped together,” she pointed out.
“I’ve had the best experiences with writers when there’s a real collaboration. We need each other to tell the story. To me, the best idea wins. I don’t want to be the smartest person in the room – I want to be in the room with the smartest people. If I get a great idea from the key grip, I’m thrilled.”
When she started directing, there were very few women around.
“We had a TV directors’ dinner at the DGA and there were 400 men and three women. Everyone smoked cigars, so I took one too,” she laughed.
“We just had this dinner again and it was half and half. That’s a huge shift. I had people say to me: ‘You represent all women.’ Really? All of them? It’s still not good in feature films, but in TV, it’s about 37% of women and people of color [directing] now. Things have changed – and it’s good for storytelling.”
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