How Director Hanelle M. Culpepper Turned “Paradise” Finale “Exodus” Into an Emmy-Worthy Epic

Creator Dan Fogelman’s post-apocalyptic political thriller Paradise is a wild, post-apocalyptic thrill ride that’s got heart as well as brawn. As it approaches its third and final season, the show’s popularity has grown as it has become clear it’s one of the most ambitious series on TV. That’s largely due to word of mouth from fans that love its suspenseful yet heartfelt storylines, superlative performances, and cinematic set pieces. Paradise is set in a city-sized underground bunker three years after a doomsday event, and stars Sterling K. Brown as Secret Service agent Xavier Collins, James Marsden as US President James Bradford, and Julianne Nicholson as “Sinatra,” the billionaire chief decision maker in the bunker. The impressive supporting cast is equally essential to advancing the character-driven, often emotional plotlines.  

In the second season, new characters are introduced, with the central focus on survivor Annie Clay (Shailene Woodley), a former med student, and Link (Thomas Doherty), the head of a survivor group searching for the bunker. After 4 nominations for the first season, Paradise season 2 increased its haul with 7 Emmy nominations. These include Outstanding Drama Series, Lead Actor for Brown, Supporting Actress for Nicholson, Guest Actress for Woodley, and Hanelle M. Culpepper for Outstanding Directing in a Drama Series for the season’s last episode, “Exodus.” 

Culpepper is no stranger to genre TV. She became the first woman and the first African American director to launch a new Star Trek series with Picard, for which she won an NAACP Image Award. Culpepper was on set working on one of the three episodes she is directing for Paradise’s final season when she got the news of her nomination. 

We spoke with Culpepper about the joy of being Emmy-nominated, working closely with the show’s cast and crew, and wrangling hundreds of background actors for scenes from the exciting and shocking season 2 finale. 

Paradise is entirely filmed in California, with the bunker scenes shot in Valencia and Warner Brothers Studios, and the exteriors shot in regional sites. What has been your experience filming in and around LA? 

What’s great about shooting in California and in LA is my family gets to see me. I’m usually on the road, and it’s been a really nice three years of being in town and getting to know this family of cast and crew. They’ve been working together for over 10 years, because a lot of them were on This Is Us. The challenge is driving over to Santa Clarita or further to Pyramid Lake for the location shoots, but ultimately I’m able to come home at night, so that’s been just wonderful. I’m really hopeful that all these rebates that the government is now giving us, from what the governor signed, will bring a lot more work back to Los Angeles. 

As far as collaborators, I’d love to hear about working with cinematographer Yasu Tanida, and your first AD Lisa Zugschwerdt, whom you’ve said were invaluable. 

Yes! Yasu was amazing. What was great about “Exodus” is they don’t alternate DPs on Paradise, even though it’s such a giant show, and so Lisa and Yasu and I spent many a weekend together scouting locations and figuring out how to shoot, and working with the storyboards. Lisa was an amazing partner for this whole process, because she thinks very logically but also knows story is important, so we’d get together on a Saturday and get our coffee. Then we’d meet with the storyboards, move them around, color-code them, and figure out what required a visual effects piece and what required multiple sets. For example, the elevator sequence required four different sets, so figuring out what to shoot on which set, and how long it would take, required a lot of brain power and thinking outside the box. Lisa was a key partner in making that episode happen. 

For “Exodus,” there had to be a lot of planning for what’s onscreen to be such high quality, while staying on budget.

There’s just so much that viewers don’t even think about, or wouldn’t know about, like, for instance, all the video footage you see during the exodus, that Lisa and I and her team did. We actually came up with little stories for all the background actors, so they didn’t just come onto the set and were told to run this way or run that way. We gave them all their own little stories, and I feel like it comes through, maybe only in a subliminal or subtle way, but I think it made the story a little bit more grounded, as well as adding a feeling of community. 

Being in the background isn’t always easy.  

Absolutely. Those actors had to run, run, run. They had to run at Pyramid Lake when it was super hot, and run at the Warner Brothers lot, and then at Bridgeport. It was a lot, and I applaud them. They were so willing and committed, and I think they made a big difference. 

What stands out to you in terms of the challenges of “Exodus,” compared to the rest of your work on the show? 

I remember producer Steve Beers telling me we were going to be shooting World War 3. This was a few months before we started prep, and I just knew I was in for a very big episode. I started looking at things like All’s Quiet on the Western Front again, because if there was a lot more war, I wanted to see what elements are key to that. I thought that episode 107, [Season 1, episode 7, “The Day”] was such a phenomenal episode, and that for me that was the bar I wanted to meet, as far as the suspense and emotional journey you’re feeling. 

Episode 7 of season one, “The Day,” shows the catastrophic events leading to the apocalypse, and the experiences that brought the residents to Paradise. It’s definitely a fan favorite. 

It was incredible. So with “Exodus,” my goal was to do something that took the audience on a ride as great as that one, and it was bigger than my others. Episode 106 had suspenseful moments, but this took it to a whole new level. Paradise hits my sweet spot because I’m a director who is strong at building these immersive worlds that genre requires, but always keeping the emotional journeys of the characters as important as the suspenseful pieces, because ultimately that’s what keeps the audience invested and wanting to keep watching. When you think of episode 7 in season two, “The Final Countdown,” and episode 8, “Exodus,” they have it all. It’s a mother seeing her son for the first time. It’s people on opposite sides of a conflict that have to come together to save people. In that way, it speaks to what has to happen in our real world. 

In “Exodus,” there are a lot of scenes with a great use of light. Is it meant as a metaphor about the bunker versus the outer world? 

I mean, the sun is so important, and the fake sun versus the real sun, so what we discussed was that it’s really important to bring the real sun into those shots, and to make sure we capture those moments when the people who’ve been living in the bunker experience that for the first time. That’s why I have that one shot when Sinatra’s husband, Tim [Tuc Watkins], steps into the light, and looks up at the sun, and just stops for a moment, because they haven’t seen it in three years. There’s the moment when Sinatra puts her hand into the light, but in episode 7, we also had the conversation between Sinatra and Link, and that set was pretty shadowy and dark. I thought it was interesting to play the two sides, because we’re talking about light versus dark in the scene, and it’s lit in that very contrasting way. 

All your work on Paradise has culminated in an Emmy nomination for “Exodus.” You must be thrilled!

Everyone always says it’s an honor to be nominated, but it really is, because, as I said, season one’s “The Day” episode was so amazing. Being nominated for “Exodus” means I managed to create an episode that was at least as good as “The Day.” Also, it was great to be nominated while I was shooting season 3 of Paradise, so I could be there with the people who were such a key part of making that episode happen. We all had to think outside the box. We all had to pull from everywhere to make it happen. So it was really special to get that nomination while I was with them. 

All episodes of Paradise are currently streaming on Hulu. 

Featured image: PARADISE – “Exodus” – HANELLE M. CULPEPPER (DIRECTOR), THOMAS DOHERTY. (Disney/Ser Baffo)