We’ve been talking a lot about groundbreaking Emmy nominations this year, like Kathy Bates as the oldest-ever drama actress nominee for “Matlock.” But here’s another one for the record books that’s been decades in the making: Five of the six nominees in the directing for a limited or anthology series or movie category are women — Shannon Murphy (“Dying for Sex”), Helen Shaver (“The Penguin”), Jennifer Getzinger (“The Penguin”), Nicole Kassell (“Sirens”) and Lesli Linka Glatter (“Zero Day”).
“I look at all of the directing nominees in my category, and they’re more than 90% women, which, in terms of change in the world, is extraordinary,” Glatter says. “And the work couldn’t be more different. … This is what the world is starting to look like, so that we are now feeling more represented and our stories are being told. And this is positive for storytelling on every level.”
I can’t help thinking that this is such a good sign that all the hard work this industry has put into representation is paying off. Glatter remembers often being the only woman in a male-dominated field when she began to pursue a career in production.
“One of the things I love about directing is that everyone’s path to doing this crazy job and telling stories in this extraordinary way is completely different,” she says. “I came from a predominantly female field in dancing, and so I never really thought about being a woman.”
But when Glatter made the switch to the directing biz, “I looked around and went, ‘Ooh, there’s not a lot of us.’ So I decided it was important, once I was working, to grab the hand of the next generation to open the door, because I was very well mentored when I started directing.”
Glatter gives props to early mentors who were largely supportive men, including Steven Spielberg and David Lynch — she got her start working on Spielberg’s landmark 1980s series “Amazing Stories” and then on Lynch’s “Twin Peaks.”
Those were auteurs dipping their toes in the small screen at a time when most filmmakers looked down on the medium. Back then, it was a traditionally writer-driven world, but the move to more prestige TV in recent years — and the flexibility that comes with telling stories in all shapes and sizes — has been “thrilling” for directors, Glatter says, as they get to play more in the episodic sandbox.
“I’ve been blessed to work with extraordinary writers, and that has been the key collaboration,” she says, pointing to folks like Alex Gansa on “Homeland” and David E. Kelley on “Love & Death.” “But they have viewed me, and we have viewed each other, as partners in this process. And the agenda is to tell the best story possible. It’s a collaborative team sport. When those partnerships work, it’s extraordinary, and when they don’t, it’s difficult. But no one can do it all. We all need each other to tell stories in this way.”
But it’s become a tough time for the industry, including for directors. Putting on her cap as the president of the DGA, Glatter says she’s concerned about the ongoing effects of the “triple whammy” of COVID, the Hollywood strikes and the L.A. fires.
“I’m on a project right now where people are working in categories well below what they normally do, because they haven’t worked for a year and they need the work,” she says. “We were all hoping that production would come raging back, which it hasn’t. I remain hopeful that it will build back up — maybe never to the degree it was, but people still need stories. That hasn’t gone away.”
Glatter says she’s still optimistic about the future, and that’s why she gives this advice to aspiring directors: “You have to remain tenacious. And all of that tenacity to be able to be a director, or whatever path you choose in filmmaking, you have to remember the joy. This crazy job is wonderful and insane, but I want to do it until I’m rolling to the set with my walker and oxygen tank.” Luckily, Glatter has plenty of time to break even more ground.
