Variety’s High Tea and Dish With Directors Event Celebrates Helmers

They compared notes on shooting days, wearing multiple hats on set and the confidence it takes to fully embrace the concept that the best idea wins.

Six top directors gathered Tuesday to kick off Variety’s TV Week slate of events with an invitation-only High Tea in West Hollywood that featured conversations with Lucia Aniello, Janicza Bravo, Susanna Fogel, Lesli Linka Glatter, Lisa Joy and Christina Alexandra Voros.

Over two conversations, the helmers reflected on the specific skills that a director needs to be successful on episodic series.

Glatter, the respected industry veteran whose most recent series is Apple TV’s “Imperfect Women,” explained the complexities of the job.

“As a director, you have to learn what everyone does on the set so you can appreciate the skills they all have, and so you can be a good leader and a good collaborator, because we are all of those things,” says Glatter, who is the past president of the Directors Guild of America.

The demands of the job are often “all opposing things,” she says. “You have to be really clear about what you want but completely open to the best idea that comes in. You have to be compassionate and strong. And the great thing is that no matter how long you’ve done it, every time it’s like you’re beginning again. It’s like a whole new thing. So I love that this is what I get to do as a job.”

Glatter spoke with Bravo and Joy in a conversation moderated by Cynthia Littleton, Variety’s co-Editor in Chief.

Bravo contrasted her experience in working on various shows as a guest director. Early on, she battled insecurity, Bravo admitted.

When discussing how to address challenges in a shoot, Bravo had been condition to think that if an idea “is not coming for me, what’s what are they going to think?” Over time she realized that ideation is not a race.

“The idea [proposed] was great, and it was. It wasn’t that it was better, because it’s not this sort of competition of ‘better.’ It just was that the goal was to take care of the work, and that work was what we were all there for and that I was able to for a split second, recognize that the idea was better, and that I when it happened, I thought, ‘Oh gosh, I hope to always have this available to me.’ I hope to always be open to what is the best idea, and not that everything has to come from me. I hope to be able to create an environment on a set where people feel they’re able to raise their hand or speak up.”

Bravo added that her experience last season on FX’s “The Bear” with showrunner/executive producer Christopher Storer marked the best kind of environment.

“I had said no before it happened because I was like, [the show] already it knows itself. I’m not sure what I can offer. And then the showrunner, Chris Storer, had given me so much room that it actually felt slightly unusual,” Bravo said.

Joy, who is showrunner and executive producer of Amazon Prime Video’s “Fallout,” shared her experience of having been the one to hire directors.

“As a producer, I saw so many different directors come in and they were all incredibly different their styles,” Joy said. “And I realized that the people who were the most successful were the most true to themselves. I couldn’t just James Cameron my way through a scene – that wouldn’t work for me. I feel like everybody has their own style, and if you can embrace it and own it, then you feel more comfortable making mistakes, asking questions, leaning on collaborators and they feel more comfortable with you because you’re presenting something that’s honest.”

Glatter reinforced that the director has to have a 360-degree view of the story and where it needs to be serviced. Communication and collaboration with the showrunner, as Glatter had with “Imperfect Women” leader Annie Weisman, is crucial.

“If you really understand what story you’re telling, what the themes are, what the text is, what the subtext, you’ll know what you can move through. And if you don’t really understand that, then you’re grappling the whole time,” Glatter said. “If you know the story, then you can pivot.”

Fogel, creator and executive producer of Peacock’s “Ponies,” picked up on that theme in her conversation with Aniello and Voros, which was moderated by Emily Longeretta, Variety’s director of features.

Fogel reflected the increasing trend of writers and showrunners who also direct.

“If you’re the writer too, it’s that additional responsibility to make sure that you’re open minded if people come to you and have problems with the script while still being steadfast in your opinions about how to move the day forward,” Fogel said. “There’s a lot of management that goes into directing, aside from the creative stuff.”

Aniello, the co-creator and executive producer of HBO Max’s “Hacks,” didn’t mince words when talking about the extra layer of pressure that comes with directing an episode in addition to producing.

“The main feeling I have when I’m directing is extreme stress, to be completely honest, in a way that I think is good and healthy, I just feel extremely responsible for everything on set when I’m directing, Aniello said. “When I’m not directing because I don’t feel like I hold that responsibility as much, I’m able to be a little bit more playful. I’m a little bit less stressed about how long until our till we turn around and the technical stuff. So I’m able to just be thinking a little bit more like, oh, this joke — could it be funnier?”

Voros described her trajectory of having worked as a camera operator on the early seasons of “Yellowstone” before she advanced to the director’s chair. Voros is a big part of the Taylor Sheridan universe of shows. She helmed all episodes of Paramount+’s “The Madison,” the Michelle Pfeiffer-Kurt Russell starrer that debuted in March.

The support system of the true company of crafts people that Sheridan has assembled has made it possible for his company to produce such a high volume of stylish dramas.

“The only thing that makes it possible is I’m surrounded with a team of people that can read my mind, love me on my worst days and understand what the goal is of the kind of show that we’re trying to make,” Voros said.

“And then every time you start a new show and you get a new cast you kind of have to try to get them to drink that Kool-Aid with you. It’s like, it’s not gonna hurt you, but you should really drink it because this is gonna be the long show. And people are down for it. People are down for feeling. They feel the family. They feel the aspirational quality of some of these bigger shows and what we’re trying to do it for, and how we’re trying to do it. That’s what gets you through the longest hours on the longest days,” Voros said.

(Pictured top: Lesli Linka Glatter, Janicza Bravo and Lisa Joy)