Zero Day marks the second political thriller series that has earned Lesli Linka Glatter an Emmy nom for best directing.
“I always try to mix it up,” the nine-time Emmy nominee (seven of which she earned for Homeland) says of the Netflix limited series that stars Robert De Niro as a former U.S. president tasked with investigating a catastrophic cyberattack.
Here, the president of the DGA, which was involved in the recent passage of AB 1138 — a new law that bumps California’s film and television tax credit up to 35 percent — shares her hope that her new project, a TV adaptation of Araminta Hall’s 2020 novel, Imperfect Women, leads by example.
The Zero Day script came to you with De Niro attached. What does it take for you to say yes to a script these days?
I don’t want to be telling the same story over and over or in the same genre; hence doing things like Now and Then and the pilot of the Gilmore Girls and Homeland or Mad Men or Zero Day. [When] the pilot was sent to me, I read it and thought, “Oh my God.” If I start to read something and I start to see it and feel it and taste it, I know I’m the right person to direct it. I often read things that are really, really good, but I’m not the right person. I don’t feel that thing in my heart and my gut that tells me this is the one. I rely on those instincts.
Lesli Linka Glatter
Jasmine Archie
You’re now doing Apple TV+’s Imperfect Women. Where are you in the process?
I’m working very closely with the writer and showrunner, Annie Weisman. The book is based in England, [but the series] is based in L.A. Annie has very skillfully taken so much of the core of the book, but translated it a different way. We have a great cast: Kerry Washington, Elisabeth Moss, Kate Mara, Joel Kinnaman and Leslie Odom Jr. It’s about women’s friendship, and of course there’s a crime involved and it’s very juicy and doesn’t go where you think it’s going to go. I’m very fortunate to be filming in L.A. now. We have to keep our industry alive. Storytelling is so important, and I think right now it’s even more important. And it’s a huge business. We want to be sure that we don’t let that go away.
Before Zero Day, you were working on another political thriller, The Banker’s Wife, until it got scrapped because of the pandemic. Could it get picked back up?
It was supposed to shoot in six different countries, then COVID happened. I literally was packed to go to Budapest for I don’t know how long, since I was directing all eight hours. Sadly, it was one of the really good projects because it was such a big, international thriller, and it just went by the wayside. Maybe it will [be revived]. You never know if something is interesting material and a world we haven’t really seen. I think there’s lots of merit to it. I’m developing a lot of different projects with my writing partner because I love that process. We’re so fortunate to be doing this crazy job in this crazy way and collaborating with a huge group of people. Moving an army to make things happen is kind of what we directors do.
This story first appeared in an August stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.
