Making history as the first black woman to be nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Directing in a Drama Series was the last thing Salli Richardson-Whitfield might have been thinking when the nominations were announced this morning.
“Winning time It wasn't even on my mind,” the first-time Emmy nominee admits.
Richardson-Whitfield’s manager had called to let her know that Gilded Age, which she executive produces and directs, had been nominated for best drama series, a win that seemed pretty big for Richardson-Whitfield, who had never attended an Emmy. “I was like, ‘Great! I can go to the party,’ ” she recalls. “Then he called me later and was like, ‘Salli, you’re nominated!’ And I was like, ‘For what?’ He was like, ‘For Winning Time,’ and I can’t say what I was saying in the middle of the set, but I was like, ‘Shut up! What the hell?’
“I had this moment where, literally, this relief flooded my body, as strange as it may seem. I never cry. I don't know if it's [being from the] South Side of Chicago, I don't know what came over me, but I started crying,” she adds. “I remembered what we accomplished on that show and how much I loved doing it and the hard work. I spent every weekend with my DP [Todd Banhazl]who was also nominated, working on that basketball.”
Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty is equal parts drama and on-court prowess in its reimagining of the 1980s Los Angeles Lakers basketball team, the backroom dealings of owner Dr. Jerry Buss (John C. Reilly) and the ups and downs of the players' personal lives. Richardson-Whitfield is nominated for the sixth episode of the second season, “Beat LA,” which follows the Lakers' disappointing loss in the 1983 NBA Finals after winning the '82 championship and leads into the highly anticipated showdown with the Boston Celtics, particularly Magic Johnson (Quincy Isaiah) and Larry Bird (Sean Patrick Small), in the 1984 Finals.
Part of the fine-tuning of the episode involved watching footage from the original games, both to recall specific plays and to ensure that the technical aspects of the sport were accurate to the era. “A lot of it is to remember what kind of basketball they played back then, because it’s not the kind of basketball we play today,” Richardson-Whitfield explains. “As a director, I would know if someone was doing a dunk that was too modern. People start doing too much and doing high fives, and I’m like, ‘Listen, nobody was doing high fives back then.’”
The authoritative tone RichardsonWhitfield uses in his example is the same one he brought to the set. “I'm a coach out there. Those guys are going to tell you, 'The boss lady here is not quiet.' I'm going to be on that field in your face as a coach saying, 'Your defense looks like crap' — that might not be the word I was using. (Laughs.) “And you guys on the bench, you should be screaming.” “And you’re here. Get your butt up.” They were like, “OK, coach.” It took a lot of energy to do that.
That momentum translates to the screen, with basketball sequences giving viewers the feeling of watching a live game. The show’s news footage, replicated using vintage cameras, mimics a post-game show. “I like to keep the camera moving,” says the director. “I like to feel like I’m on a roller coaster. So I direct the scenes that way.
“Also, as a director, I focus a lot on the transitions between scenes. A lot of times people might not notice it, but that's why the episode feels like it's moving and flowing, because from one scene to the next, everything has been planned; it has a flow.”
After two seasons, HBO has cancelled Winning time in September. The five Emmy nominations the sports drama has received this year are encouraging, Richardson-Whitfield says. “Sometimes you have a great show at the wrong time. I think this shows that people are going to look back and say, 'That was a great show,' and they're going to appreciate it more and more now that it's gone.”
As a talent who first made a name for herself as an actress in the early 1990s (A dirty and low-level disgrace, The Great White Clamor), being named director is also a personal recognition for Richardson-Whitfield.
“If you had asked me 15 years ago, my dream would still be to submit for my Emmy as an actress, so to have made such a drastic change in my life validates that I made the right decision,” she says. “You might think you know the plan for your life, but there's a higher being out there. God knows what the real plan is. I always say that if I were a bigger actress, then I wouldn't have gotten into directing. That doesn't mean I won't act again one day, but my path is to be a director and I think I'm pretty good at that.”
This story originally appeared in an August standalone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.