Salli Richardson-Whitfield On Double Emmy Noms for ‘The Gilded Age’ and ‘Task’

A study in contrasts: the Season 3 “Gilded Age” finale, featuring two lavish balls and a fairy-tale marriage proposal, and a late-season episode of “Task” that opens with a 17-minute chase scene through the woods, bullets flying. Both were directed by Salli Richardson-Whitfield and both earned her Emmy nominations, making her the first woman to receive directing nods for two different drama series in a single year. She already made history in 2024 as the first Black woman to be nominated for directing a drama series, for HBO’s “Winning Time.”

“That’s what I set out to do — all history!” she joked. “Honestly, the first time, I was very surprised because ‘Winning Time’ had been canceled, and it was so out of the blue,” she added. “This was the first time I’ve ever hoped that I would at least get a nomination. I felt the shows were worthy of it. And when I got the message that it was two from my manager, I was like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me!’”

The episodes, “My Mind Is Made Up” from “The Gilded Age” and “Out Beyond Ideas of Wrongdoing and Rightdoing, There Is a River” from “Task” (both HBO series), make a tidy diptych that encapsulates Richardson-Whitfield’s range.

“I always say as a viewer, I like to watch different things. And as a filmmaker, I want to explore different genres,” she said. “It’s always a challenge for me. But I do tackle them the same way. Really, it comes down to: What is the story that I’m telling and what are the pieces that I need to tell it?”

She began her career telling stories from the other side of the camera, building a filmography as an actress that spans Keenen Ivory Wayans’ “A Low Down Dirty Shame,” Denzel Washington’s “Antwone Fisher” and several TV series, including five seasons on Syfy’s “Eureka.” She had been acting steadily for 20 years before Ava DuVernay sensed something in her on the set of the Oscar nominee’s feature directorial debut, 2010’s “I Will Follow,” in which Richardson-Whitfield stars as a grieving woman. In between set-ups, the actress found herself offering DuVernay advice.

“I was like, ‘Well, why don’t you just shoot this tomorrow? And then you could do this,’” she said, laughing. “Probably she was annoyed with me. And she went, ‘You know what? I think you’re a director.’ I don’t know why, but her just saying that really spoke sort of these God words into me, and things flashed.”

She’s been calling the shots ever since. Richardson-Whitfield signed a development deal with HBO in 2020, which led to her two current Emmy-nominated projects. “In ‘Gilded,’ obviously I can have fun doing some really beautiful stuff — like, how can I put the most scope and highlight not only our actors but our sets and the wardrobe?” she said, describing her approach to Julian Fellowes’ 19th-century-set drama, which she now also exec-produces. (As an EP, she picked up a third nomination with the show’s drama-series nod.) “But at the end of the day, how do I break your heart when Peggy gets her proposal?”

She’s referring to the scene in “My Mind Is Made Up” where Dr. Kirkland (Jordan Donica) asks Peggy (Denée Benton) to marry him in the middle of a grand summer ball. Richardson-Whitfield had a clear idea of how their interaction on the dance floor would unfold.

“I wanted it to feel like an old-time romance, like ‘Cinderella’ — just really magical,” she said. “My favorite shot in that sequence is Dr. Kirkland’s POV of Peggy as we’re pushing in on her, and she’s moving at regular speed. Then once you see her, the camera slows. She looks so beautiful, like this beautiful little cherub.”

Richardson-Whitfield’s nominated episode of “Task” begins with an adrenaline rush of a different order. In the freshman crime drama created by Brad Ingelsby, Mark Ruffalo plays Tom, an FBI agent heading up a special team to investigate violent robberies in the working-class Philadelphia area. By Episode 6, his crew is in the forest pursuing a murderous, drug-dealing biker gang and Robbie (Tom Pelphrey), the man who stole from them.

“I story-board it all out so I know exactly what I need,” she said. “We had a model of the bridge made up, and the woods.” They shot for about two weeks in Wissahickon Valley Park and other nearby locations.

Her biggest challenge was not losing sight of the characters in the fast-paced shootout. “Then all of a sudden, no one cares,” she said. “Yes, we have these big set pieces, but you have to know as a filmmaker when it’s time to be still and just tell the story, tell it simply.”

She did that in the scene where Tom confronts a dirty cop from his team, Grasso (Fabien Frankel). They sit quietly at a dining-room table, neither of them raising their voice. The tension escalates until Tom states calmly before heading out the door, “I’m coming for you, Grasso.”

“That is my favorite scene,” said Richardson-Whitfield, who’s also an executive producer. “Mark is on him. It’s a long scene, which is hard on TV. People get bored. But I remember in editing, every single time I would revisit it, I was like, ‘I love this scene.’ Mark Ruffalo is so brilliant.”

Richardson-Whitfield is returning as a director and an EP of the next seasons of both shows. And even though she has found her calling, she still acts. Sometimes she even directs herself, as she did in “Task,” appearing briefly as a deputy D.A. who discusses the case with Tom.

“We were about to cast it, and I said, ‘Oh, I can do those three lines real quick. It’s not a big deal.’ And surprise! Mark didn’t know. He came in, he’s like, ‘Is the actress not going to rehearse with me?’ And I’m like, it’s me!” she said. “Whenever I can do my little Hitchcock moment, I enjoy it.” 

This story first ran in the Down to the Wire Drama issue of TheWrap’s awards magazine. Read more from the issue here.