ATX TV Festival Honors Emmy-Nominated Director Lesli Linka Glatter
Exclusive
ATX TV Festival is honoring three-time DGA Award-winning and eight-time Emmy-nominated Director/Producer Lesli Linka Glatter with the annual Award in Television Excellence.
Glatter, the current President of the Director’s Guild of America, has had a prolific 20-plus-year career in television, working on such iconic shows as Homeland, Mad Men, and The West Wing to ER, Twin Peaks, Gilmore Girls, and Freaks and Geeks, among others. First presented in 2014, the Award in Television Excellence seeks to recognize individuals whose career reflects the very best in television.
(Credit: Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
“I have always believed that it shouldn’t be harder for our daughters to direct than for our sons,” Glatter tells TV Insider ahead of receiving the honor. “It should be equally hard for everyone. It should be an equal playing field for all — finally we are moving in that direction and it’s a really exciting time. There is room for all kinds of voices and it makes for richer, deeper, and more varied stories. For all those in a position to hire and to mentor, until it is truly an equal playing field, take one hand and open the door — that’s how we make change.”
“I couldn’t be more thrilled and honored to be the first director receiving this amazing award, and to be joining the ranks of past nominees who I so admire; Norman Lear, Henry Winkler, and Phylicia Rashad,” Glatter acknowledged. “I love being a storyteller. Even at 2 a.m., of a really hard day, when everything is going wrong, and then it starts to rain… AND you’re eating a soggy grilled cheese sandwich that you don’t even want but you eat it anyway, I am still always grateful to be doing what I do – to be a storyteller.”
Along with being honored, Glatter is also participating in the festival’s panel conversation on TV’s “Dangerous Women,” which will explore complicated female villains, unconventional heroes, rule-breakers, and everything in between who continue to push the boundaries of storytelling and redefine women on TV. In addition to Glatter, the panel will feature Kevin Can F**k Himself executive producer Valerie Armstrong with more panelists who will be announced at a later date.
Coming up next for Glatter is the HBO Max series Love and Death, on which she serves as a director and executive producer. Written by David E. Kelley and starring Elizabeth Olsen and Jesse Plemons, the title certainly falls under the “Dangerous Woman” categorization as it tells the story of real-life ax-murderer Candy Montgomery.
Stay tuned for the special panel, and don’t miss what’s next for Glatter as her stellar TV career continues.
