Interview: Lady in the Lake Director Alma Har’el Talks Apple TV+ Drama

ComingSoon Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese spoke to Lady in the Lake director Alma Har’el about the Apple TV+ drama, which stars Natalie Portman and Moses Ingram. Har’el discussed working with Ingram on the series, which is set to release on July 19, 2024, and the advantages of being on streaming.

“When the disappearance of a young girl grips the city of Baltimore on Thanksgiving 1966, the lives of two women converge on a fatal collision course. Maddie Schwartz (Natalie Portman) is a Jewish housewife seeking to shed a secret past and reinvent herself as an investigative journalist, and Cleo Johnson (Moses Ingram) is a mother navigating the political underbelly of Black Baltimore while struggling to provide for her family. Their disparate lives seem parallel at first, but when Maddie becomes fixated on Cleo’s mystifying death, a chasm opens that puts everyone around them in danger,” says the synopsis.

Tyler Treese: I wanted to ask you about Moses Ingram. I was just so blown away by her. I know she already had a breakout role, but this is like a breakout on top of a breakout.

Alma Har’el: It’s a breakout of all breakouts. It’s cementing the breakout status. It’s taking it from the breakout to the eternal queen.

Yeah, you ask a lot from her and she meets you there. So what really stood out about her as a performer? Because she’s incredible.

You said it, man. Really this was an incredibly demanding part. Moses Ingram was cast late into production, stepped in with no pre-production and no time to prep for this character. Filmed it in what we call cross-boarding. So out of order. Some of the first scenes she shot were one of the last scenes in the show. She more than met me. She gave me memories for life. She’s truly not just an incredible actress, a performer, a singer, a dancer, just everything you can want from somebody for a role like this.

But she’s also a poetic artist, and she approaches everything with faith in the process and exploration and willingness to go as deep as you can hope somebody would. Every day, we came, we knew that it was scary. We knew that. We took a lot on ourselves with no preparation and came back home at the end of the day and feeling like we battled it.

I wanted to ask you about the freedom of streaming because the episode lengths can be 54 minutes, and sometimes it’s 44 minutes. As a creative, how helpful is it to not have to hit a specific number?

Oh, it’s the only way to go. I was so happy about that. I feel like something has its own meaning and its own time, and you know when it’s done, and you know when you peaked, and you know when it’s over, and you know what you wanted to say, and you don’t wanna add one more shot to that once you did.

Especially episode six, which you are referring to the 44 minutes, which is like a very, very unique episode. I think in every way you look at it, you kind of really wanna make sure that it is what it is. I think that the show has a very specific way of making time feel. You know what I mean? Like, there’s something about the way that it treats time. Especially because these stories are weaved and there’s so many twists and turns and flashbacks and dream sequences. I know a lot of people were afraid when we were making this show that they’re gonna get lost in it. That people are gonna lose the need to go forward because of that.

But I think that being able, like you’re saying, to not be committed to a specific thing when it comes to the length and instead of it [being] committed to the nature of the episode made it possible to keep it so tight.

Thanks to Alma Har’el for speaking to ComingSoon about Lady in the Lake.

Tyler Treese

Tyler Treese is ComingSoon and SuperHeroHype's Editor-in-Chief. An experienced entertainment journalist, his work can be seen at Sherdog, Fanbyte, Rock Paper Shotgun, and more. When not watching the latest movies, Treese enjoys mixed martial arts and playing with his Shiba Inu, Kota.