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Though Jay Roach started his career directing comedy franchises like "Austin Powers" and "Meet the Parents," recently he has shifted his talents to dramatizing slices of history that have captivated the nation.
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With 2008's "Recount," he examined the Florida recount of the 2000 presidential election. Then in 2012's "Game Change," Roach highlighted Sarah Palin's run as vice president during John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign. And now for his latest, he's turned his focus to one of the biggest media stories in recent memory, the toxic environment at Fox News that brought down its creator, Roger Ailes.
In "Bombshell" (playing in limited release and opening nationwide on Friday), Roach teams with "The Big Short" screenwriter, Charles Randolph, to look at the women whose allegations of sexual misconduct against Ailes led to his ousting, including Gretchen Carlson (played by Nicole Kidman) and Megyn Kelly (Charlize Theron).
The movie is a fourth-wall-breaking look at their stories, headlined by Theron's spot-on performance as Kelly. It begins at the time Kelly was going head-to-head with then presidential candidate Donald Trump leading up to her moderating one of the debates (the one where Trump said Kelly had "blood coming out of her, wherever"), and ends with Ailes' downfall at Fox News.
The movie does not shy away from looking at what women went through at the company (Margot Robbie's character, Kayla, is based on a composite of multiple people), and Roach admitted he only went forward in directing it after making a "pact" with Theron that she would produce the movie. The director said a lot of the process of filming the movie was absorbing experiences others went through.
"I just tried to listen and figure it out through women's stories," Roach told Business Insider. "It had to be that kind of collaboration for it to work."
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It has so far. "Bombshell" opened on four screens over the weekend in New York and Los Angeles and took in one of the best per-screen averages of the year, $78,000 (in total, it brought in $312,000). And 59% of the audience that showed up were women.
Below, Roach talked to Business Insider about a few of the hardest scenes to shoot and explained one detail you might have missed.
Warning: Spoilers below if you have not seen "Bombshell."
Roach said filming the harassment scene of Margot Robbie's character was "life changing."
In one of the movie's most harrowing scenes, Robbie's character, Kayla, gets an interview with Roger Ailes and is hoping he'll consider her for an on-air job. However, as the meeting progresses, Ailes (played by John Lithgow) gets more lewd and then demands Kaya lift up her skirt.
"Being in the room with Margot Robbie while she's experiencing that very direct harassment was life changing," Roach said. "In just those few minutes shooting it you could never look at harassment the same way again."
Roach said he was operating the camera that was shooting a wide shot in the scene. He particularly wanted to film it on multiple cameras to limit the amount of takes they would have to do.
"Just watching her face move from trying to get this job and thinking she's auditioning in a way for this very powerful man who could help her career, transitioning to being pushed across the line, it was extraordinary to witness," Roach said.
But what really got him was watching the scene later in the edit room and looking at Robbie's reaction in the scene.
"When I saw that tilt-up shot to show her face," he said, "just seeing the emotion was powerful."
Rudi Bakhtiar says that scene really happened.
Another scene that's hard to forget is one that depicts sexual harassment of Fox News reporter Rudi Bakhtiar. In the middle of the movie, there's a scene where Bakhtiar (played by Nazanin Boniadi) has to deflect the advances of Fox News anchor Brian Wilson. The scene is memorable as most of it is done with Bakhtiar's inner thoughts giving a rundown of how to get through the situation. As the conversation between Bakhtiar and Wilson goes on, we listen as Bakhtiar realizes her job at Fox News is done (she was later fired).
"We are protecting all our sources of people we talked to, but she has actually come out and outed herself as one of the people we talked to," Roach said, referring to a Hollywood Reporter story in which Bakhtiar spoke about the movie. "Her story is so compelling."
"The dialogue in that scene between them is from the actual account that came out, and then Charles turned that into an inner monologue," Roach said. "The excruciating thing in that scene is she outs the guy for hitting on her, then she has to somehow placate his ego as she gets out of it. But also knowing she has lost her career."
You weren't seeing things — in the movie, Sean Hannity is carrying a gun.
In one of the more lighthearted moments in the movie, at the point when it looks like Ailes is going to fall, there's a scene in the newsroom where some of the big-name anchors are mingling, including Geraldo Rivera (played by Tony Plana), Neil Cavuto (P.J. Byrne), and Sean Hannity (Spencer Garrett). As the scene ends, you can notice when Hannity is putting on his blazer that he has a handgun tucked in the side of his waist.
"We read that he's packing sometimes at work," Roach said. "He's kind of proud about it."
In 2016, CNN reported that Hannity pulled his gun out on Fox News contributor Juan Williams. Hannity told CNN in a statement at the time: "While discussing the issue of firearms, I showed my good friend Juan Williams my unloaded firearm in a professional and safe manner for educational purposes only."
Roach said having Hannity carrying a gun is not in there for a laugh, but just one of those details he likes to throw into these true-life movies.
"He might be threatened all the time, who knows," Roach said. "But as a storyteller you don't want to miss an opportunity to do that."
