Kat Coiro made her first foray into the Marvel Cinematic Universe with She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (Disney+), directing multiple episodes and serving as an executive producer on the series. Tatiana Maslany stars Jennifer Walters, an attorney for superhuman cases who, like her cousin Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), turns into a Hulk when she gets angry.
The tongue-in-cheek show–which has generated Emmy buzz–adds to an already eclectic body of work for Coiro whose exploits range from the feature And While We Were Here, which she wrote and directed, to helming the pilot for Tina Fey’s Girls5Eva.
And While We Were Here earned a Jury Award nomination from the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival for Best Narrative Feature. And the pilot for streaming Peacock series Girls5Eva garnered a 100 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Among Coiro’s television directing credits beyond Girls5Eva are Dead to Me, Shameless, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, The Mick, Modern Family, Brooklyn 99, Florida Girls, Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce, and Mozart in the Jungle.
In addition to And While We Were Here, Coiro has a feature filmography which includes Life Happens and Marry Me. The latter starred Jennifer Lopez, Owen Wilson and Maluma, opening last year as the number one title on Peacock.
At press time Coiro was wrapping a multi-episode run of The Spiderwick Chronicles for Disney. She had also directed a Matlock reboot starring Kathy Bates in the title role for CBS.
Coiro studied theater and film at Carnegie Mellon, the American Film Institute and the Moscow Art Theater in Russia where she also got engaged in Russian history and literature. Beyond her entertainment content output, Coiro is passionate about working towards a plastic-free environment and has made it a priority to eliminate or at least dramatically reduce the presence of the environmentally damaging material on her projects.
Coiro’s comments have been edited for clarity and brevity.
SHOOT: What attracted you to She-Hulk: Attorney at Law and the Marvel storytelling arena?
Coiro: I was a She-Hulk fan as a kid, I grew up with her. And I became a fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe from a filmmaking perspective. I remember being so amazed when watching the Thor movies, how they adapted and evolved–from starting out serious and then the latest movie being comedy. I loved the way that Marvel listened to audiences and how they created this universe that changed over time tonally.
I was excited when I heard they were making She-Hulk. I thought how are they going to adapt the Marvel Cinematic Universe to encapsulate the tone of the She-Hulk character which is very different from everything else. She breaks the fourth wall. The script I read early on allowed for the tone of the comics, pushing boundaries.
SHOOT: Did you enter the Marvel Universe with any trepidation?
Coiro: The show is so tonally different and so big. But the only time we were scared was before we had Tatiana. We had worked on the script for quite a long time. Pretty early on we were discussing casting and her name came up.
Hers was the one name that was unanimous, from Kevin Feige [Marvel Studios president] to me, the producer, the writers. I cast her for the part. She has the intelligence and the emotional vulnerability as an actress. She can play both sides of the coin.
SHOOT: What was (were) the biggest challenge(s) that She-Hulk: Attorney at Law posed to you as a director?
Coiro: The visual effects were so extensive, even bigger than anyone at Marvel had originally imagined. We had a grounded real world with a CGI character. This CGI character was inhabiting part of his natural world. [Marvel Cinematic Universe exec producer] Lou Esposito told me, “How do you feed an elephant? The answer: One bite at a time.” It can all be accomplished if you break it down into its smallest parts.
Plus working at Marvel, you have at your fingertips all the visual effect technologies. There’s not a default technology. Instead you have much to choose from in order to figure out the best way to capture a scene.
SHOOT: The cinematographer on the six episodes you directed was Florian Ballhaus. What drew you to him?
Coiro: I started my career in micro-budget indies in the rom-com world. He was at the top of my wish list but not attainable. Finally for Marry Me, with Jennifer Lopez and Owen Wilson, I got Florian. We had a wonderful time working together. He approaches everything through the story as a cinematographer. We collaborate on story.
I then brought him onto She-Hulk. And then he did The Spiderwick Chronicles with me. I’m building up a team of people I work with, It allows the work to be better. You speak a common language. You hit the ground running. My DP, costume designer [Ann Foley] and production designer [Elena Albanese] from She-Hulk all went on to do The Spiderwick Chronicles with me.
SHOOT: What was your biggest takeaway or lessons learned from your experience on She-Hulk: Attorney at Law?
Coiro: Since She-Hulk, I directed and executive produced a new series for Disney [The Spiderwick Chronicles]. It was very visual effects heavy. I went into it feeling so prepared, because of the skills I developed in visual effects that I walked away with from She-Hulk. I’m feeling a confidence with effects, which is such a gift. It makes me so happy to have that toolbox with me.
What I learned within the visual effects world is that ultimately [acting] performance is still king. When you see visual effects that don’t quite work, it’s often because humanity is not being put in the front seat. We had those priorities straight [for She-Hulk], working with talented actors like Tatiana Maslany and Mark Ruffalo.
