Director Kari Skogland On ‘The Loudest Voice’s Cautionary Tale, Marvel’s ‘Falcon & Winter Soldier’ & More [Interview]

Speaking of which, what drew you to helping tell Roger Ailes’s story?
Besides the cast, Roger Ailes represented a time and a place and an entitlement to a certain executive which I had run into and survived, I suppose, in my career many times. He was more in the broadcast industry, coming from behind-the-curtain versus someone I really knew that much about. I knew that there’d been a scandal, but I didn’t know the inside minutia. So, I was really attracted to the story of false news and how that happened. Particularly [how] the United States, at this moment, was so affected by a lapse of judgment in truth in journalism. I grew up in a broadcast family.

[Ailes] turned what I had grown up to believe was sacred, turned it on its heels, and made it entertainment. It’s a cautionary tale, and I was very excited to be one of the ones to be able to tell it. As a woman growing up through those times, I absolutely understood his entitlement and why such bad behavior was tolerated. And not just tolerated, but enabled.

What was it like witnessing Crowe’s physical transformation on set?
He’s one of the most brilliant actors of our time. There was the physical makeup, but he transformed his entire body, even the way he walked, the way he sat behind a desk; every movement that he put into his performance was part of him embracing, channeling Roger Ailes. McBurney did the same. So did Sienna. All of them had tremendous makeup and prosthetics as part of their transformation each day. Across the board, all the performers were really physically embodying each one of these characters. There’s Carlson, Laurie Luhn, Brian Lewis. They were all such known people that you had to not just take on their face, but their physical attributes, the way they speak.

Russell would listen for hours every day just to Roger’s syntax. He had tapes of Roger speaking so that he could take on the rhythm of how he spoke. To watch him do that, it was always very disconcerting at the end of the day [laughter]. He would come out of the trailer as Russell, and it was almost like I couldn’t really talk to him because it was like, “I’ve just been talking to Roger all day, and now I’m all thrown because you’re not really Roger. You’re Russell [laughter].”

Can you tell us a bit about the AMC adaption of the novel “NOS4A2?”
Joe Hill, Stephen King‘s son,  a very prolific writer in his own right. It’s a family drama with a twist. And you’re not entirely sure whether the lead character, who is a young woman, is completely crazy or, she is punching through parallel worlds. And then there’s a character played by Zachary Quinto, who is a vampire. But you don’t really know that because he doesn’t suck blood in the traditional way. He’s more like a soul sucker. He takes the souls of young children and feeds on that. It’s this blend of two worlds.

On the family drama side, it’s a young woman dealing with parents who suffer alcoholism, and it’s a narrow bandwidth on who they can become. And she’s struggling with their limitations. And yet, she sees the world in a bigger way; she’s struggling with the fact that there’s this nefarious vampire out there who is taking young children to what’s called Christmas Land, the purgatory of children who will live forever in this magical but horrific place. It walks the line between horror and drama and sanity and insanity. And it’s quite a wild ride.

I’m definitely looking forward to that one and also “Falcon & Winter Soldier,” which is coming out next year on Disney+. You’ve directed in the MCU before with “The Punisher,” but how will this show differ in style and tone, and what will the story focus on post-“Endgame?”
As you can imagine, I can tell you almost nothing, [laughter] because it’s all a closely-guarded secret for the sake of everybody enjoying the nice surprise of what we’re cooking up. But it is going to be a wonderful and wild ride. As you know, at the end of ‘Endgame,’ the shield was passed to Anthony Mackie. Now, we will go on that ride with him and see where that takes us.

And that’s about as much as I can tell you at this point. But I can say it will be jam-packed with all the things that the MCU is known for, which is not just the drama but also the wonderful action that we do. What I’m thrilled about is that as a female, I’m working with Kevin Feige and Nate Moore and Zoe Nagelman, all of whom are on the feature side, and we are making a six-hour feature. The MCU universe is so inclusive and so diverse in how they see the world. They’re very forward-thinking, and I’m very proud to be part of telling their stories.

Any future projects beyond ‘Falcon’ that have you excited?
I’m looking at some features. I’ve just written a feature that Noomi Repace and I have been working on, and that might come out after I finish “Falcon & Winter Soldier.” I have done a number of other six-hour miniseries or series that I’m working on. I’m working on a project called “The Away Game,” which is based on the Sebastian Abbot book. Johan Fasting is writing that for me. And it’s a wonderful book based on the soccer world of Qatar. I have another project called “Acts of Faith” based on the Philip Caputo book. It’s a marvelous, epic tale set in the no-fly zones of Africa. But the people are tremendously resilient, and there’s just marvelous drama to be had in going into that world. And those are just a couple of the projects that I’m trying to bring to life.

“The Rook” premiered on June 30 on Starz.

“The Loudest Voice” premiered on June 30 on Showtime.

“NOS4A2” premiered on June 30 on AMC.