![]() And it was the ability to start working on a small show at AMC called Halt and Catch Fire. And so it took me several years to actually get work in television. Both those films were considered failures at the time, and I hadn’t really even considered the concept of how failure, as much as I think it’s a crucial part of the creative process, affects a career or slows a career down. After my first indie film that was very much mine, I made a big studio sci-fi love story at 60 times the budget and then another studio film called Jennifer’s Body. I got out of by just pitching the heck out of doing the American version of Shameless and then, when I got that pilot, making sure it was as extraordinary as I could possibly make it. Like you, Paris, that which scares me ultimately will be the thing I’m drawn to. That and a terrible movie I’d made the same year forced me to reexamine my choices and completely change direction away from straight comedy. I found it difficult to get a job afterward, and was in a tricky situation financially. I was bland and vanilla in my choices, and consequently, so was the pilot. Toward the end of that run, I took on a pilot, which I won’t name and never should have done. I’d come over to do one episode of Entourage, and ended up staying and jumping into that producer-director role. MARK MYLOD It’s when you can’t get a gig! I made a horrible pilot when I first came to the States. ) How did you find yourself there - and, just as important, how did you claw your way out? By the first day on set, I’m already preloaded with information, which helps me to do what I have to do.Ĭan I get a show of hands of everyone here who’s ever found themselves in director jail? ( Mylod and Kusama raise their hands. I want to tell them who I am and hear how they like to be directed. I’ll say it’s 20 minutes, but sometimes they go as long as an hour and a half - with, say, Evan Peters. Because of the masks, I wanted to meet via Zoom with every principal actor beforehand. It’s so strange how many times people say, “Oh, the last director didn’t talk to me at all.” I love my job, by the way, but it can be ridiculous. That seems to go down quite well, particularly with actors. I ask people questions and then I listen to the answers. Who has a party trick for getting them to trust you or, at the very least, kind of like you? In television, unless it’s a pilot, your jobs often mean going into other people’s workplaces and telling them what to do. 'The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning' Narrator Amy Poehler: "Human Life Is a Lot of Laughs As Well As a Lot of Heartbreak" They also got frank about stints in director jail, why artificial intelligence isn’t just a threat to writers and, speaking before the DGA’s tentative deal with the studios, the “existential cliff” of Hollywood’s standoff with labor. Meeting over Zoom in May, the filmmakers behind the past year’s most acclaimed episodes - including Mylod, Paris Barclay (Netflix’s Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story), Liz Garbus (Showtime’s Yellowjackets), Peter Hoar (HBO/Max’s The Last of Us), Karyn Kusama (Prime Video’s Dead Ringers and Yellowjackets) and Jake Schreier (Netflix’s Beef) - kept returning to the career choices that scared (and inspired) them during their hour together. But fear, it turns out, is a major motivator for six of the top TV helmers working right now. “That which scares me ultimately will be the thing I’m drawn to,” observed Mark Mylod, director and executive producer of HBO/Max’s Succession, not necessarily intending to get philosophical during The Hollywood Reporter‘s Director Emmy Roundtable.
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