The 'UnREAL' star expands her career with directing opportunities for Lifetime and Funny or Die.
Earlier this year, Shiri Appleby fulfilled a goal she’d laid
out for network executives while filming the pilot for Lifetime’s UnREAL: to direct an episode of the hit
series. “I told them all that I’ve already done the work and was really hoping
for the opportunity,” says Appleby, who plays weary reality dating competition
producer Rachel Goldberg on the Bachelor-inspired
drama.
Stepping behind the camera, the actress helmed the
season-two episode “Casualty,” making her prime-time directorial debut. But
this wasn’t merely a vanity project to appease a network star. For Appleby,
it’s a next step in her career that she’s been working toward ever since the CW
series Life Unexpected was canceled
in 2011.
Still most famous for playing Liz Parker on Roswell at the time, Appleby was ready
to take more control over her career. “I started feeling like I was capable of
doing more than just acting,” she tells ET about transitioning into her 30s,
which meant fewer satisfying acting opportunities. “You don’t really have a
choice -- in terms of being an actress -- about when you get to work. So, it was
about creating as much opportunity as possible.” For Appleby, that meant producing
the web series Dating Rules From My
Future Self and shadowing on shows like Franklin
and Bash, the CW’s 90210 and HBO’s Girls.
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The HBO comedy proved to be the most pivotal opportunity for
Appleby, who emailed executive producer Jenni Konner “endlessly about coming in
to shadow.” After spending time on set, the show’s creator and star, Lena
Dunham, eventually took notice, casting her in a recurring role as Adam
Driver’s onscreen girlfriend, Natalia. “[Girls]
gave me tremendous credibility and without that, I don’t know if I would have
had this opportunity,” Appleby says of landing UnREAL and directing.
When her episode aired on July 11, the actress says she was
happy with the end result. “When I got the script, I remember thinking, ‘Man,
am I really going to be able to pull this off? I can't believe these people
trusted me. I've conned them into giving me the opportunity, so now I actually
have to deliver,’” Appleby recalls. “Watching it and seeing my name up on the
screen, I just felt really proud of myself because it was watching a dream come
true, watching a goal achieved.”
While the Lifetime series has a specific tone, of which
Appleby says, “In terms of being an actor, you just want the best director for
the job,” UnREAL has only had five
female directors over two seasons. Just a few months after Appleby’s episode
aired, Angela Bassett became American
Horror Story’s first female director in the FX anthology series’ six
seasons. According to the Center for the Study of Women in Television &
Film, women only accounted for 12 percent of broadcast TV directors in
2015-2016. It’s a trend that’s not unfamiliar to Appleby, who says that of the
64 episodes she shot of Roswell, only
one had a female director.
“It’s incredibly important that we’re having a wide variety
of people craft the stories we’re pushing out there,” she says. “Each
storyteller is going to create a different theme and a different way of
expressing themselves, and you never know how the audience is going to connect.
But if we continue to push the exact same format and the exact same point of
view, we're not really expanding our audience’s world experience. And I feel
like that's a disservice to the people that are tuning in.”
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With her first episode of UnREAL behind her, Appleby is already facing the next challenge:
“getting another network and another show to give you an opportunity to see
that you’re actually capable of directing.” While she’s yet to clear that
hurdle, Appleby is busy expanding her directing credits. In addition to helming
another episode of UnREAL next season,
she’s working on a “Funny or Die” short and partnering with the Skimm for
Lifetime’s upcoming election special.
While Appleby herself has largely been silent on the 2016
presidential election, she saw an opportunity to give people the support and
information to make sure their voices were heard on Election Day by directing
interstitials that are currently airing on Lifetime and will appear during the
network’s prime-time event, The View Live
Election Special. “For me, it's really important to inform other women and
get people to participate,” she says of her role behind the camera.
“It's just allowing me to have a larger career,” Appleby
says of the latest directing opportunities. “Moving forward, I hope to expand.
I really love this industry and I really love being creative and storytelling.”