Few viewers would recognize Jeremy Podeswa (Toronto, 61 years old) seeing his face, but many identify his name after having seen it in countless credits. Although directors live in the background in the world of series, the Canadian has become a television icon from behind the cameras. He has achieved this by participating in some of the key fictions of recent history. He was one of the pioneers in the series fever by directing episodes of Two meters underground and Boardwalk Empire in the golden age of HBO and the version of Queer As Folk from Showtime. Those responsible for Game of Thrones They counted on their experience to take charge of some of their most important and anticipated episodes.. The one about the revelation of Jon Snow’s identity, at the end of season 7, bears his signature. Ridley Scott has also trusted him to bequeath him one of his most respected sagas. Podeswa will direct the first episode of the miniseries Blade Runner 2099which will premiere on Prime Video in the near future, and will also be one of its executive producers.
When he met with Scott, the script for that first episode had already been written and those for the rest of the episodes were somewhat advanced, the Canadian director told this newspaper in November during Thessaloniki film festivalwhere he participated with a masterclass in the days dedicated to television. The British director explained to him that he would not be able to film the pilot because his schedule was busy with the sequel to Gladiator and gave him the witness. The story will serve as a sequel to the classic starring Harrison Ford in the eighties and Blade Runner 2049, starring Ryan Goslin and directed by Denis Villeneuve. “We are going to maintain the essence of the original film. It’s one of the things Ridley and I talked about from the beginning. Although he has not been very strict on issues such as aesthetics and style either. It is open to change,” warns the director about this miniseries that begins filming in the spring of 2024. “The problems that the use of artificial intelligence poses to humans will continue to be present in the plots,” reveals Podeswa, who assures that will try to keep alive “that brilliant game between past and future” that Scott captured in his 1982 feature film.
The Canadian director understands blade runner as “one of those stories that have raised universal and timeless questions and that have built their own universe, as happened with Star Wars. That is why it can be adapted to many formats.” In recent years, several short films and even an animated series have turned the adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s science fiction short story into a fruitful franchise. “The dilemma he posed at the time was quite new for the time. And it is also an issue that has continued and even increased over time. What was once an abstract idea is now a reality for viewers,” says Podeswa.
Seminal television
The director admits that, while recording the first season of Two meters underground, I knew that a special series was going to be born and different from the rest. But he never imagined that it would be so seminal and influential for other creators for so long. “It was clear that it was top-notch television. The scripts were beautiful, lucid and fun. The cast was perfect and the visual style impeccable,” he recalls. “What I didn’t know was that something that demanded so much from the viewer was going to be so well accepted by critics and the audience,” he continues. The Canadian explains that he noticed it even in his personal life: “It was the first time I saw the people around me gather in a house every week to watch a new episode of a series.”
Something similar happened, in another context, when he was in charge of launching the American version of Queer as Folk, the first fiction that put the gay perspective at the center of the story before a global audience. “I saw the British original by Russell T. Davies and it was so explicit my head exploded. He was truly progressive. On the one hand, we had the advantage of already having a direct reference when it came to making history on American television. On the other hand, we had to do it in a society very different from that of Europe. The sex scenes, for example, were very different. In our case, the mere fact of recording them was already a political act,” he defends.
Often, directors have to soak up the already defined identity of a series to take charge of just one episode. “It is a somewhat thankless but well-paid profession,” admits Podeswa. Proof of this is that the directors’ union also renegotiated their contract this year to adjust salaries and labor rights but, unlike the screenwriters and actors, they did not go on strike as they considered these improvements to be satisfactory. “The issue of Artificial Intelligence affects them much more directly. And it was something that had to be defined,” she says.
Jeremy Podeswa is used to his job being to jump on a moving train that is already well-oiled. Precisely, one of the most complicated moments that he remembers from his career coincides with one of the most pleasant as a spectator: watching the pilot episode of Broadwalk Empire which Martin Scorsese directed. “He is a genius who shot his episode in more than a month and with a very high budget. Timothy Van Patten and I were in charge of the following chapters. We had to record each one of them in 10 days and with much less money. Seeing that wonder that Scorsese had done, we looked at each other and said: We’re screwed,” he remembers.
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