THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 37 OCTOBER 30, 2019
50 percent women and people of
color and 50 percent male. There’s
gender parity on our show.Did any women hire you earlier on?
I’ve most always been hired by
men. [Former Paramount chief]
Sherry Lansing is the only woman
who gave me a job, when she
reached out and gave me Deep
Impact with Steven Spielberg.And you were blowing up then.
One has really hot, nonstop work
— and then you’re not so hot any-
more. During the ER days, I was
very hot. I made The Peacemaker
[1997], the first DreamWorks film.
I did Deep Impact [1998], then I
made Pay It Forward [2000], and
everything stopped dead in films.
Boom! Movie jail.What’s movie jail like?
Your reps never say, “I can’t get
you the job that you said you
want.” They just tell you, “I can
get you this job.” It’s very delicate
and humbling. You do erratic
things. You change agents.
Ultimately, your work gets you
work. During that time, I was very
much accepted in TV — when it
was like, “Who wants to work in
TV?” Now everybody does.In 2018, you came back to film after
a long break.
Michael Ellenberg, whom I’d
worked with on Luck and The
Leftovers when he was at
HBO, had already asked me to
direct the pilot and produce
this series with Jen and Reese
attached when I’d signed on to
do On the Basis of Sex. The Harvey
Weinstein story broke in the
middle of production. I’d come
home from shooting a scene
about gender inequality, and
there it was on TV.Do you want to do more features?
I love television, but I’m going to
do another feature — or two or
three. I’ve co-written one with
my brother and niece about our
filmmaking family. It’s like Day
for Night. Hopefully, I’m going
to direct this love story Kristin
Hahn is writing based on the
book The Light We Lost. I have a
lot in development.The other asteroid movie,
Armageddon, famously came out
two months after Deep Impact.
What was your reaction to discov-
ering you had a rival project?
I couldn’t believe it. And
the press was trying to pit us
against each other. That didn’t
feel good. Both films have great
value and, fortunately, they
both succeeded tremendously. It
was just so strange. I have sto-
ries. I just don’t know if I should
tell them.You should probably tell one.
Michael Bay did come to my
premiere, which really shocked
me. And I can tell you that after —
after [seeing] my film — he went
and reshot the end of his.Interview edited for length
and clarity.There also is Steve Carell’s char-
acter, which has prompted a lot of
comparisons to Matt Lauer.
You can’t ignore the #MeToo
movement as part of this
world. On the show, our story
is fictionalized. The male char-
acters, certainly Steve’s, are
definitely an amalgam of many.
Unfortunately, there are too many
to draw these stories from. It’s
still daily. We’re watching the
NBC situation unfold again right
before our eyes — which is the
plot of our show.Was it challenging finding the
tone while negotiating two very
different storylines?
It is a drama but also very much
a dark comedy. I wanted it to
be grounded in reality — never
farcical, never a joke, but funny. I
wanted it to have several looks. In
front of the daytime TV camera,
it’s sunny, beautiful, bright and
flat. When that camera’s turned
off, I wanted it to be saturated in
color and have a lot of shadows
and edge.There are a lot of lingering shots,
particularly on Aniston’s character.
That’s part of the visual language
of the show. I wanted to hold shots
longer than normal — like Jen
staring in the mirror during the
first episode. Normally you’d cut
sooner, and they asked me to, but
I found her fascinating.People credit you with bringing the
steadicam to television on ER, but
when do you feel like you estab-
lished your style as a director?
During China Beach [1988-1991]. It
was one of the great experiences
of my life and when I really felt
that I had become a director.By ER, you also were a pro-
ducer and in a position to hire
women directors.
Yes, I brought Lesli Linka Glatter
into the fold on ER. Women had
less [past directing work] to show
— women always have had less to
show than men — so women were
hired less.Do you feel it has improved since
we started talking about it more?
It’s not equal. No, no, no. Nowhere
near! But we are working really
hard. The Morning Show isIt’s a timely show that pulls the
curtain back on the world of
make-believe that is morning
television and examines those
personas. There’s also something
of a love story between these two
women who collide at very differ-
ent points in their careers — one
at her peak, coming to a cliff’s
edge, and another trying to make
her mark — and navigating that
world together and apart.
Leder won
her first directing
Emmy in 1995 for the
“Love’s Labor Lost”
episode of ER. It sits on
her hallway bookshelf
alongside an Emmy that
ER won for best drama
and her Peabody for
The Leftovers.A promotional
photo of Leder taken
on the occasion of her
feature debut, 1997’s
The Peacemaker,
starring George
Clooney and Nicole
Kidman.RÉSUMÉ
CURRENT TITLE
Director and executive
producer of Apple’s
The Morning Show
PREVIOUS JOB
Director of The Leftovers,
Shameless and
On the Basis of Sex
BIG HITS
ER (top 5 U.S. TV series
for eight seasons)
and Deep Impact ($350M
global box office)