‘Severance’ cinematographer Jessica Lee Gagné talks moving into the director’s chair
The Business
KCRW
4.6 • 676 Ratings
🗓️ 8 August 2025
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week, Kim Masters speaks to Severance director and cinematographer, Jessica Lee Gagné. The Quebecois filmmaker reflects on her collaboration with Severance executive producer Ben Stiller, which began on the Showtime limited series Escape at Dannemora. She discusses becoming the first woman to be Emmy-nominated in the same year for both cinematography and directing in a drama series, and the major leap of faith it took to transition from a successful career as a DP into the world of directing.
Plus, Disney is reshaping its sports strategy, launching a standalone ESPN app, and making billion-dollar deals with WWE and the NFL. Will the NFL's new stake in ESPN bring scrutiny from the Trump-led DOJ? Also, the Skydance-Paramount deal is done, and the Ellisons may have their sights set on Warner Bros. Kim Masters and Matt Belloni break it all down.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | From KCRW, I'm Kim Masters, and this is The Business. |
| 0:05.2 | After shooting the first season of Apple TV's severance, |
| 0:08.4 | cinematographer Jessica Lee Gagne didn't think she wanted to return to those chilly |
| 0:12.4 | lumen offices. She even resisted executive producer Ben Stiller's offer to make her directing debut |
| 0:18.4 | until she read the synopsis for the second season's episode seven. I was kind of lying to myself to the fact that I was just really afraid of doing it, to be honest, and didn't want to deal with everything that comes with directing. But I could do it on this project because there was people surrounding me that I knew really well. So I was like, well, if I'm going to try, I'm going to try with that one. |
| 0:38.3 | Thanks to her work on Severance, Jessica Lee Gagne has become the first woman to be Emmy |
| 0:42.7 | nominated in the same year for both cinematography and directing in a drama series. |
| 0:48.1 | She talks about working with Ben Stiller, a partnership that began on Showtime's Escape at |
| 0:52.7 | Danamora, and she explains why it took a major leap of faith to try her hand at directing. |
| 0:58.4 | But first we banter, stick around. |
| 1:00.4 | It's the business from KCRW. |
| 1:03.9 | I am joined by my partner in banter, Matt Bellany. |
| 1:07.0 | Hello, Matt. |
| 1:07.7 | Hi there. |
| 1:08.6 | So Disney is going to launch ESPN as a standalone streamer at the end of |
| 1:12.8 | this month. That's 30 bucks a month, give or take. And meanwhile, they're on a buying spree and a deal |
| 1:19.0 | spree. They have just recently announced that they're going to pay $1.6 billion to WWE, taking it |
| 1:26.6 | away from Peacock. It had been a $900 million deal for |
| 1:30.7 | peacock. It's now a $1.6 billion deal, which shows you that these properties are just |
| 1:36.2 | soaring in value. They're probably going to renew their deal with UFC, which they did for |
| 1:41.8 | $300 million a year, some years ago, and everybody thought it was a |
| 1:45.9 | ridiculous overpayment, and now they're going to actually have to pay a lot more than that, |
... |
Transcript will be available on the free plan in 10 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from KCRW, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of KCRW and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.