- "Bombshell" director Jay Roach spoke to Business Insider about telling the story of the women who brought down Fox News head Roger Ailes.
- Roach explained what it was like to film the hard-to-watch sexual harassment scenes.
- He also gave some insight on one specific detail: why Sean Hannity can be seen carrying a gun in the movie.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
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.
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."
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."