Hollywood is all about insecurity, including my own
As he joins a stellar cast of iconic photographers for a major new London exhibition, Game of Thrones, E.R. and House director Daniel Sackheim lifts the lid on the stars he helped shine bright... or butted heads with
DANIEL Sackheim is hardly a household name – he’s not recognisable by one word like Scorsese, Coppola or Tarantino – but the Emmywinning television producer and director has worked on some of Hollywood’s most acclaimed shows over the last three decades. He has crafted episodes of Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead, Law & Order, E.R. and House; recent hit series including Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, True Detective, Better Call Saul, The Americans and Ozark; and such classics as Miami Vice, X-Files and NYPD Blue.
Sackheim knows many of Hollywood’s secrets and, in an exclusive interview, offers a unique view behind the dream factory’s facade. “Hollywood is a town built on massive insecurity, and I’d include myself in that,” says Sackheim, 65.
“I’ve worked with big stars of television and film, and I’m always surprised by their level of fear, anxiety and self-loathing.
“I very rarely watch my own shows once they’ve finished filming, because I know how the sausage was made.
“I’m a huge Game of Thrones fan, but when you walk onto the sets and you can see it’s a backdrop and the stone is moulded styrofoam, it shatters the illusion. I can spend weeks propping up a lead actor, helping them find a revealing cathartic moment, and that makes it harder to suspend disbelief when viewing the show later.”
Also an award-winning photographer, Sackheim is in the UK this week for the launch of an exhibition of photographs at London’s Iconic Images Gallery.
More than 50 shots by photographers as varied as Norman Parkinson, Terry O’Neill, Gered Mankowitz and Kevin Cummins are being displayed. Many of the images are celebrity shots, including images of James Brown and Marilyn Monroe.
Yet Sackheim’s own photos emerge from his “obsessive curiosity rooted in a need to discover secrets that remain hidden beneath even the most forbidding corners of the city”, he explains.
Sackheim studied photography at art college before becoming a film editor and took up his camera in earnest during a 2008 Hollywood strike that halted production for months. “Photography and directing demand a very different focus, but have a common point of view, and I’m hard-wired for visual story-telling. “I seem to always get hired for television projects that are dark, moody and fatalistic, like True Detective or Ozark, and my love of film noir is reflected in my photography: the sense of darkness and desolation, mystery and betrayal that lies in the shadows.”
But Sackheim is also ready to shine a light on the forbidden corners of Hollywood’s most lauded productions.
“One of the great surprises directing Game of Thrones was Lena Headey, who played Cersei Lannister,” he says. “I’d have an idea how I’d want every scene to go, and she’d say, ‘Can I try something else?’ And time after time she was right, beyond brilliant. Dame Diana Rigg was challenging to work with: she spat fire. She was set in her ways, formidable and intimidating.
“British actors are generally great: they’ll do anything you ask for the character, but Diana would complain that a scene made no sense, when what she really meant was that she didn’t like the actor opposite her.
“I’d constantly have to negotiate with her. Diana Rigg’s character Lady Olenna Tyrell was enemies with Cersei and Diana told Lena, ‘I wouldn’t let you within 100ft of me’. But Lena insisted on playing a scene seated next to Diana and it was spectacular; Diana couldn’t complain. Kit Harington was
‘I seem to get hired for TV projects that are dark, moody and fatalistic... my love of film noir is reflected in my photos’
amazing, always finding the truth in a scene. I directed the episode where he comes back from the dead and we spent hours discussing what a resurrection would feel like.”
Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan spy thriller proved more challenging.
“John Krasinski is a great actor and director, but in Jack Ryan he was very hard to work with,” says Sackheim. “As a director he has lots of ideas, many good, but some not appropriate for the scene.
“We’d have a scene with characters talking around a conference table, and John would say, ‘Couldn’t we have them talking as they climbed a mountain?’
“But then we’d have to explain how they got there (did they teleport?) and why they were climbing a mountain, and it would throw the whole show off track. He’s a great director, but can be challenging to work with as an actor and can sometimes get in his own way.”
The Walking Dead presented some bizarre moments for the director.
“We filmed in Atlanta in 115F heat, so hot that the zombies’ prosthetics melted and while filming a scene an eye or ear would accidentally drop off. It was surreal to go to lunch and sit at tables with zombies missing noses and eyes, eating corned beef hash.
“The Walking Dead has its own Zombie School teaching actors how to shuffle like the living dead, tilt your head to one side, and deal with the claustrophobic makeup.
“People came from across America – lawyers, housewives, businessmen – wanting to play zombies.”
Filming The Americans, about a sleeper spy cell, was “the best experience of my life,” he says.
“Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell are the nicest people I’ve ever worked with. The challenge was we never had enough money to make the show we wanted.”
Ozark won acclaim as a dark crime thriller, but Sackheim says: “I butted heads a lot with Jason Bateman, who starred and was executive producer. We went at it like cats and dogs. I used to make him crazy, but you’d never know it to watch the episodes.”
Sackheim directed many X-Files episodes, as well as the spin-off movie.
“David Duchovny is fiercely intelligent, and was on track to become a PhD when he began acting, and wasn’t at all certain if he wanted to be an actor or academic.
“He could be very funny. We filmed one scene where aliens were using bees to spread a deadly virus and in the days before CGI, I hired 50,000 bees. Coming up on lunch hour, David asked if we could break to eat, but I explained that if we waited too long the bees could get lazy or aggressive.
“He said, ‘Are you f***ing kidding me? Are you telling me the bees have a better union than I do?’ And so we broke for lunch.”
FILMING Miami Vice, Sackheim remembers borrowing the vintage Ferrari Testarossa driven by Don Johnson’s character Sonny Crockett, only to badly scrape its undercarriage trying to negotiate a steep hill. “Michael Mann, the show’s producer, read me the riot act for 20 minutes.”
Directing E.R. had its own unique hazards. “George Clooney loves practical jokes, and one day said that an actor playing a neurosurgeon had gone missing and asked me to step in to say the line.
“I got into costume and every time I said my line, George said, ‘Give it a little less.’ After a few takes, I was in a flop sweat and he kept asking me to be less emotive.
“Finally I realised it was all a joke at my expense. But George is one of the most gracious and self-aware actors I’ve ever worked with.”
On another medical show, House, British star Hugh Laurie “was his own worst critic”, says Sackheim. “He never trusted his American accent and was constantly saying, ‘I’m the wrong guy for this,’ even after three successful seasons.”
Sackheim is now producing ONE, a Formula 1 drama series for ITV starring Felicity Jones – but admits that when he first started directing classic cop series NYPD Blue more than 30 years ago he almost gave it all up in frustration.
“I was constantly clashing over my vision for the series with the producers, who wanted to throw me out of their third floor window,” he recalls.
“The show’s star David Caruso was crazy tough, and then just crazy, and would fight me over every idea for a scene.
“I was bruised and battered, and thinking of quitting directing. But the very next day I was nominated for an Emmy for the show, which I won.
“So I thought: maybe directing is what I’m supposed to do. My problem is, I’m a perfectionist in an industry where that’s not considered a great attribute.”
●●Bright Lights, Big City, featuring the work of Daniel Sackheim and others, opens at Iconic Images Gallery, London, on Thursday and runs until May 25