E129 - Lewis Arnold Part 1: Breaking into TV Directing

The Directors’ Take Podcast

In this episode of The Directors' Take podcast, your hosts Oz Arshad and Marcus Anthony Thomas are joined by Director Lewis Arnold, whose directing credits include MISFITS, BROADCHURCH, DARK MONEY, CLEANING UP featuring Sheridan Smith, DES featuring David Tennant, TIME featuring Sean Bean and Stephen Graham, SHERWOOD with Adeel Akhtar and he has most recently directed all seven episodes of the upcoming ITV series based on the victims of the Yorkshire Ripper, THE LONG SHADOW. There aren't many better working directors in the UK that we could bring on to discuss how you can become a successful jobbing director and we'll spend the next two episodes breaking down just that. The first part of our conversation includes:

-What is the job of a director?

-What was his journey into directing?

What does he see the pathway into the industry looking like now?

-His resource Directors Now.

-How does he interview for projects?

-The differences between first and second block directors.

Lewis Arnold has just finished directing all 7 parts of THE LONG SHADOW for New Pictures/ITV. Prior to this he directed James Graham’s SHERWOOD for House Productions/BBC1 and Jimmy McGovern’s TIME, for BBC Studios starring Sean Bean and Stephen Graham. Both shows were nominated for multiple TV BAFTAs in 2022/23. TIME went onto win Best Mini-Series and Best Leading Actor for Sean Bean whilst SHERWOOD picked up the award for Best Supporting Actor for Adeel Akhtar.

In 2020 he directed and executive produced DES for New Pictures and ITV, having created the three-part drama with writer Luke Neal. The series won the International Emmy Award for Best Performance By An Actor in 2021, and was also nominated for Best TV Movie/Mini-Series. The first episode had consolidated viewing figures of 11.4 million making it ITV’s biggest new series since the launch of series CLEANING UP in January 2019, a show which he developed with writer Mark Marlow, directing the first four episodes for Sister Pictures.

It was on graduating from the National Film and Television School in March 2013, that Lewis embarked on directing his first TV project, directing with two episodes of the final series of BAFTA-winning C4 show, MISFITS. He followed this up by directing the first four episodes of Russell T Davies’s new E4 show, BANANA, and was named a Broadcast Magazine Hotshot 2014 for his work on both shows.

Other credits include BROADCHURCH and HUMANS, which became Channel 4’s most successful original drama in over 20 years when it aired in 2015. After directing two episodes on series one, he was asked back a year later to direct the lead block of the second series for Kudos and AMC.

Lewis is also represented in the US by Matt Greenberg and Jon Cassir at CAA.

Nuggets of the week

BFI NETWORK: Directing for TV with Lewis Arnold

Directors' Now

Credits

Music by Oliver Wegmüller

Socials

Instagram: @TheDirectorsTakePodcast

Twitter: @DirectorsTake

Lewis Arnold: Twitter (X) & Instagram

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