It might be a cliché to say someone “does it all,” but it is increasingly clear that Thomas Kail is one of those people. As the Tony Award-winning director of the iconic Broadway smash Hamilton and nominated for In the Heights to Emmy-winning success in television with Fosse/Verdon, Grease Live! and the current mmy contender We Were the Lucky Ones to an upcoming live-action version of Disney’s Moana, Kail has been proving he can adapt to any medium and succeed.
He joins me for this new edition of my Deadline video series Behind the Lens to talk about all of it, most notably his praised Hulu limited series We Were the Lucky Ones, which deals with a family of Polish Jews during World War II trying to evade the horrors of the Nazis and being forced to separate in order to do so. It is based on the book by Kail’s good friend Georgia Hunter, and he has been supportive of it right from the beginning, all the way to bringing it to fruition as a limited series starring Joey King and Logan Lerman. The project has been a passionate one for Kail, and in our conversation he talks about all the challenges of making it work on screen.
We also discuss his incredible success in the theatre working with Lin Manuel Miranda on both In The Heights and Hamilton, plus turning the latter into a big hit on television for Disney + which is also what he did for Grease Live on Fox, resulting in Emmy wins for both as well as nominations for his previous limited series Fosse/Verdon which won Michelle Williams an Emmy (and BTW won Kail a wife too since they are now married and new parents).
Kail is coming off the successful Broadway revival of Sweeney Todd , and is now deep into development (with Miranda) on Disney’s live action big screen version of Moana, a movie for which he gives us just a little tease since he is sworn to secrecy otherwise.
To watch our conversation and to go ‘behind the lens’ with Tommy Kail just click on the link above.
Join me every Monday and Friday during Emmy season for another episode of Behind The Lens.