“The Morning Show” Season 4 tackled everything from deepfakes, Olympic doping scandals, media mergers to AI doubling as people’s therapists. For director and executive producer Mimi Leder, the show’s staying power is in capturing the zeitgeist.
“The show is about the moment we are living in, which is dramatic. It’s tumultuous,” Leder tells Variety‘s senior artisans editor Jazz Tangcay. “The world just throws stuff at us. We almost have to subtract what the world is throwing at us and see how it fits organically into our characters.”
Following the UBA-NBN merger, one Season 4 storyline follows anchor Alex (Jennifer Aniston) getting deepfaked, which threatens her public image and career. “How do you shoot that, by the way? We had to figure that out,” Leder said. “I had to watch a deepfake and that was really challenging because that’s something you don’t ever want to watch.”
Tackling so many different issues is what Leder loves about the show: “It’s so messy and our characters are so ambitious.” With the deepfake storyline, for example, Stella (Greta Lee) and Alex’s different viewpoints are pitted against one another, reflecting the real world conversations people are having about AI’s use in society.
While the show’s main cast of Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Aniston and Billy Crudup have stuck around since Season 1, this latest season introduced Marion Cotillard (who had never done TV before) as the villainous board president Celine Dumont.
“She was an extraordinary person to work with because she was speaking in not her first language,” Leder said. “She really got the intonations and she really got the story.”
Cotillard binged the entire show in three days and was a fan, Leder recalled. “Everybody, including her, was nervous on her first day because we were working with France’s biggest star. Just the body of her work is so extraordinary.”
Tangcay pointed out that Leder is the first female graduate of AFI Conservatory’s cinematography program. After finishing school in 1973, she went on to direct episodes of “The West Wing,” The Leftovers” and “Shameless,” as well as films like “Deep Impact” and “On the Basis of Sex.”
“I just walk around telling stories and doing my thing. When that question is asked of me, it really does make me think. I think the best way I can carry on is to do good work, and to do honest, authentic work and tell stories that are fascinating and interesting that people want to see,” she said. “If I think about it too much, it feels like a huge responsibility.”
While Leder doesn’t give any specifics on Season 5, which is currently in production, there’s no doubt the show will continue to explore the issues affecting journalists and media consumers today: “There is not a shortage of stories to tell and Season 5 is going to be a big one. It’s going to be a wild ride.”
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