Lady in the Lake wouldn’t be possible without director Alma Har’el leading the way — at least according to the cast.
During an exclusive interview ahead of the Apple TV+ show’s premiere on Friday, July 19, Us Weekly shared with Har’el, 49, some of the praise stars such as Y’lan Noel, Dylan Arnold and Brett Gelman had for her.
“I’m trying not to cry. I’m sorry,” Har’el said while getting visibly emotional about her impact on the show’s cast. “I think this project was extremely important for me to make sure every one of our actors felt safe and had the space they needed.”
Har’el recalled prioritizing the wellbeing of her cast and crew, adding, “They needed to not only — like you said — feel like they can do their best work. But also to explore and find together who these people are that we’re birthing [on screen] and how to make them authentic.”
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Lady in the Lake, which is based on Laura Lippman‘s 2019 novel of the same name, is centered on the murder of a young Jewish girl and the disappearance of a Black woman, which inspires Natalie Portman‘s character, Maddie, to look into the potential connection between the cases.
While speaking with Us about bringing Ferdie to life, Noel, 35, complimented Har’el for giving him the space to develop his character.
“We wanted to show up to work every day and give our best shot. And you are working with some of the best in the business,” Noel explained about the highlights of filming Lady in the Lake. “So it’s about just making sure that you raise the bar that’s so high. And I think we all did a great job.”
He continued: “And Alma is somebody who has a set that allows you to be your best self. I have to thank her for it because she truly is a visionary.”
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Arnold, 30, who plays Stephen, had a similar experience with Har’el, telling Us, “Something that I really appreciate about having Alma on my side is that she really cares about her actors. She really cares about them feeling good about the work.”
Meanwhile, Gelman, 47, was thrilled with how the cast was able to tell the story with Har’el’s help.
“Alma is almost a very experiential type of director who wants to see it experienced in front of her in all of its truth. And she’s very raw. And it was really exciting,” he shared with Us. “As we were doing the scenes, they became way more visceral and almost savage in a way emotionally than I ever expected it to become. And that was a really exciting way to work, and we just kept plunging into it deeper and deeper and deeper.”
Before pivoting to TV, Har’el was known for her work on the big screen with projects such as Bombay Beach and Honey Boy. She credits those movies for teaching her how to approach running a large production.
“My first movie was Bombay Beach. It was a documentary and I was alone with my camera, basically. Obviously, Honey Boy was an incredibly deep experience that I’ll cherish forever. But it had its own challenges and aftermath and I think this project was extremely important for me,” she told Us. “And our cast was — I always say that each one of them was just a star.”
Har’el called it a “gift” to work with the actors from Lady in the Lake, adding, “We had the fortune of working with Natalie Portman and Moses Ingram were like just undeniable giant talents. But then from Y’lan Noel, Byron Bowers, Josiah Cross Brett Gelman and Dylan Arnold. And of course Noah Jupe, my partner in crime from Honey Boy. You really touched a nerve and it warms my heart to hear that they’re saying that.”
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Lady in the Lake, however, wasn’t without its challenges.
“There’s a lot of aspects that come from making something on television that [feels challenging]. I said cross-boarding and the mind f—k of all that [a.k.a.] shooting out of order,” she noted. “But I think the biggest challenge is to take something of such a size and that has so much scope and has so much responsibility historically, politically and socially.”
She concluded: “Then to manage and to find pockets of intimacy and to find pockets for untethered creativity. Just balancing those acts while managing so many people on set that have different expectations of the process.”
The first two episodes of Lady in the Lake are currently streaming on AppleTV+. New episodes will be available on Fridays.
