Mimi Leder is part of the Emmy conversation, once again–this time for HBO’s The Leftovers as EP/director.
Created by Damon Lindelof (Emmy winner for Lost) and novelist Tom Perrotta (an Oscar nominee for Little Children), The Leftovers centers on the residents of the fictional New York suburb Mapleton as they cope with the disappearance of people from their community–an inexplicable occurrence that has befallen towns around the world. At the heart of The Leftovers is the Garvey family whom we see deal with grief and a profound sense of loss while somehow trying to carry on.
Lindelof asked Leder to direct an episode (titled “Gladys”) and the experience deepened their mutual admiration, so much so that Leder was asked to become an executive producer to help shape the rest of season one, while also directing two more episodes, including the season finale. “What attracted me were the characters and the opportunity to show how they deal with grief and loss. We depicted the extreme ways by which some people cope with sudden loss. I am fascinated by the subject of sudden departure and the emotional reaction to it. How would I react? How would any of us react to losing someone we loved–or didn’t love? It’s a very engaging, thought provoking and emotional proposition.”
Justin Theroux portrays Kevin Garvey, Mapleton’s beleaguered police chief and father of two who is trying to maintain some semblance of normalcy. While Kevin and his rebellious daughter, Jill (portrayed by Margaret Qualley), try to go back to the way things used to be, Kevin’s son, Tom (Chris Zylka), sees the event as a wakeup call to take action. At the same time, Kevin is faced with the conflict between Mapleton’s townspeople and the Guilty Remnant, an enigmatic, cult-like group that seems to offer an escape for traumatized residents.
As EP, Leder brought on a second cinematographer, Michael Grady. With holdover Todd McMullen and Grady as DPs, they could alternate episodes between the two, explained Leder, thus giving series directors the opportunity to more thoroughly prep with a cinematographer. “This has proven fruitful for the series,” said Leder, noting that the alternating DP modus operandi is continuing for season two.
Leder as a director on The Leftovers collaborated with McMullen on a pair of season one episodes and then with Grady on the year one finale.
As for season two, Leder noted that it is in sharp contrast to the first year which focused on the impact of people’s abrupt departure on those who are left over, Season two will instead focus on a town where nobody disappeared, the exception to the global rule. “This will take us on a different emotional road yet the show will remain very real and grounded in a very non-genre way,” related Leder.
After season two wraps, Leder is slated to embark on the feature film I Dismember Poppa, which introduces us to a family of filmmakers. She described the project as a cross between Boogie Nights and Little Miss Sunshine. “It’s about the family you make when you make a film–and about making a movie with your family. It’s about making a movie that matters at all costs, no matter what the cost.” Leder, with a filmmaker father, co-wrote the comedy/drama with her brother Reuben Leder and niece, Stefanie Leder.
Going back and forth between the feature and television arenas is nothing new for Mimi Leder who first distinguished herself in TV. In 1995 she won an Emmy Award for directing the “Love’s Labor Lost” episode of ER. Her work on ER as a director and co-executive producer earned her a second Emmy, two additional Emmy nominations, and three Directors Guild of America Award nominations for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in a Dramatic Series. Leder was also an Emmy nominee in 2006 for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series on the strength of an episode of The West Wing.
On the feature front, Leder directed DreamWorks’ first theatrical release, The Peacemaker starring George Clooney and Nicole Kidman. She went on to direct the feature film Deep Impact which grossed more than $350 million worldwide, and then Pay It Forward starring Kevin Spacey, Haley Joel Osment and Helen Hunt, followed by The Code starring Morgan Freeman and Antonio Banderas.
Leder was the first woman accepted to study cinematography at the American Film Institute. She began her directing career on L.A. Law and went on to helm several other Emmy-winning dramatic series, including China Beach on which she also served as producer for two seasons and earned four Emmy nominations. Her TV exploits also include directing multiple episodes of the critically acclaimed Showtime series Shameless, Neil Labute’s Full Circle for DirecTV, and the season/series finale of HBO’s Luck starring Dustin Hoffman and Nick Nolte.
In 2000, Leder received the Distinguished Women in Film Dorothy Arzner Directors Award.
Ellen Mirojnick
Costume designer Ellen Mirojnick’s first collaboration with director/cinematographer/editor Steven Soderbergh resulted in her first Emmy win–for HBO’s telefilm Behind the Candelabra in 2013. She also won a Costume Designers Guild Award in 2014 for Behind the Candelabra. And this year, Mirojnick was again nominated for a Costume Designers Award on the strength of the Cinemax series The Knick, her second project with Soderbergh.
Behind the Candelabra and The Knick reflect the far flung worlds and range of Soderbergh. The former had Mirojnick recreating the extravagance of Liberace in the 1970s whereas The Knick had her capturing New York circa 1900.
“Working with Steven has been the biggest joy of my life,” affirmed Mirojnick. “When I was introduced to him and we started Behind the Candelabra, I hadn’t met anyone in a long time as inspiring as he was and it has been a joyful collaboration. Working with Steven and [EP] Gregory Jacobs has been a dream come true, teaming on stories rich with possibilities and design elements. Getting to work with production designer Howard Cummings to help build the world of Liberace was a joy. And to get the Emmy for that particular show was extraordinary. Working with this team sparked for me a new found joy for costume design–and then to get the great surprise of being able to come together again with the same team on The Knick has been sublime. The story is compelling, driven by New York in 1900 where so much was new–from the immigrants to the doctors of medicine to breakthrough inventions. The turn of the century was a very new time. Though it’s a period piece, there’s the modernness of invention, of people coming to a new city, of birthing a new nation. We had to recreate this world–to create a lot of costumes, to create the hospital [a fictionalized The Knickerbocker Hospital in New York] and this world of medicine. My costume team and Howard’s team came together to help build this city basically from scratch and bring it to life.”
In the big picture, helping to bring everything to life is the trust Soderbergh places in his collaborators, observed Mirojnick. “As director, cinematographer and editor, Steven has enough trust in his collaborators to let them create. We had one conversation and then Howard and I have subsequent conversations and work things out. We have the freedom to do our work. Howard and I work closely together to define and create the world that supports the story. The structure of our team isn’t to micromanage. It really is trust that starts with Steven. He trusts those he hires, that we will be able to support the text and deliver the goods so he can shoot it.”
In between seasons one and two of The Knick, Mirojnick served as costume designer on the feature By The Sea directed by Angelina Jolie. Slated for release in November, By The Sea stars Jolie and Brad Pitt. “I like to mix it up, to shift between television and features,” said Mirojnick, adding that TV, though, has added a new dimension to creative opportunities in recent years. She noted, for example, that Behind the Candelabra was originally supposed to be a theatrical feature but “financially that didn’t work out. When HBO entered the picture, they were fabulous to work for. This era of television has brought new life to long-form storytelling. The type of feature between a small independent film and a big tentpole picture pretty much no longer exists. The golden era of television is filling that void, telling worthwhile longer stories with a series, miniseries or [TV] movie.”
Mirojnick’s career body of work is planted both in the TV and feature worlds as evidenced by her two BAFTA Award nominations for Best Costume Design: Chaplin in 1993 and Behind the Candelabra in 2014. In addition to her Costume Designers Guild Award nominations for The Knick and Behind the Candelabra, Mirojnick was also earlier a nominee for the features Unfaithful in 2003 and Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps in 2011. Her TV exploits have been diverse–Behind the Candelabra was her second career Emmy nomination; the first coming in the Outstanding Costume Design for a Variety or Music Program on the strength of Cinderella (ABC) in 1998.
This is the sixth installment of a 14-part series that explores the field of Emmy contenders, and then nominees spanning such disciplines as directing, cinematography, producing, editing, animation and visual effects. The series will then be followed up by coverage of the Creative Arts Emmys ceremony on September 12 and the primetime Emmy Awards live telecast on September 20.
