From KCRW, I'm Kim Masters, and this is The Business.

Leslie Linka Glatter has directed such influential shows as West Wing, Madmen, and Homeland.

Early in her enviable career, she made a short film that led to an unexpected mentorship.

It got nominated for an Academy Award, and Stephen Spielberg saw it on an airplane, which I thought was the most exotic thing.

He called me up, and I hung up on him because I thought it was a prank call.

Unfortunately, he called me back.

Stephen, I think, gets hung up on a lot.

Gladder joins me for a conversation about her career in television and her new Netflix

limited series, Zero Day, featuring Robert De Niro in his first television role.

She talks about several of her mentors, a list that includes Spielberg, George Miller, and

David Lynch. And she dishes a little on what it's been like to direct for streamers.

But first we banter. Stick

around. It's the business from KCRW. I am joined by my partner in banter, Matt Bellany. Hello, Matt.

Hi there. So, we are watching a lot of change going on in Hollywood as they try to figure out what they're

going to do in this administration,

which is certainly established that anything that promotes people of color or women, really,

is DEI and is bad. And along comes Disney, after quite a while now, of doing things a little

differently. We had a black little mermaid, more diversity

and in the actual content. They have Snow White, opening on March 21st, and to the horror,

I guess, of people who have this issue, the star is Rachel Ziegler, who is Latina. So Disney

has been like flailing, The thing that really had me

rolling my eyes, instead of giving her the London premiere, they sent her to like Segovia, Spain,

...