Nancy Glass, CEO of US indie Glass Entertainment, discusses the challenge of refreshing familiar topics and staging large-scale re-enactments under Covid-19 protocols for Lincoln: Divided We Stand, a six-part docuseries for CNN premiering on February 14.
Nancy Glass
Tell us about the origins of Lincoln: Divided We Stand.
When thinking of a new documentary series for CNN you always want to tap into something that feels familiar but is actually unknown. Lincoln is the second most written about person in the history of the world behind Jesus Christ, but most people only know the broad strokes about him. You know he grew up in a log cabin but you don’t know his father left him and his sister alone with nothing to eat when they were very young while he went out and got another wife because Lincoln’s mother had died. His father beat him when he read because he didn’t want him to be educated, he wanted him working the fields. He sold him to other farmers to work for them. That’s just his childhood. The evolution of what made him believe slavery had to be abolished took a long time.
Your husband has written a book on Lincoln. Was that the way in?
Yes, I’m very lucky my husband [Charles Lachman] is exec producer of Inside Edition and also writes wonderful books, including The Last Lincolns. I do an edit on those books and one of the anecdotes that stuck out to me was what I pitched to CNN the first time.
Mary Lincoln had a reputation for being a little nutty. She was in Chicago, her husband and three of her four sons were dead, she was sad and depressed. A man she knows knocks on the door, an old friend of her late husband. He says, “Mary you’re under arrest, I’m taking you to trial for insanity.” She can’t believe it. He takes her from the hotel to the courthouse where a jury of the most prominent people in Chicago is already seated there to convict her. The judge is seated. Her lawyer has been chosen, a guy she knew when Abraham was alive. Sitting across the table from her, the guy who put the warrant out for her arrest, was her son Robert Lincoln. He was embarrassed about her, that she complained about lack of money and attention and she was a pain in the tush, but insane? I don’t think so. She was sent to an asylum and got herself out by hiring the first lady lawyer in the US.
Lincoln: Divided We Stand delves into the lesser-known aspects of the man
The point was to show CNN in the pitch there is a whole lot we don’t know. When you get to do six hours on somebody who is so important to the building of what we have today, you get to explore a lot of what people don’t know. It’s a fascinating and super-rich story.
Does the current political climate in the US make this especially well timed?
We put this into production two years ago. Any time is relevant considering our political climate is so volatile. It’s important to remember some of the great people who got us to a very good place.
What makes this different to any number of other Lincoln projects out there?
Firstly, the research. If you like to learn it’s really fun putting this together. We all picked five books, then had a seminar on what we found out, picking out the narrative and what’s worth telling. Then it was about finding the people who’ve spent their lives telling those stories. The recreations were super-beautiful and really carry you along. We focus on telling the story well. It doesn’t come with an agenda or purpose other than to inform.
How did you shoot the big recreation scenes during the Covid-19 pandemic?
It was a herculean effort with 150 people on set. Everybody was tested, over and over again. We wore masks, we social distanced. We took really careful measures, besides testing constantly and the masks and safe distances. Every meal was individually wrapped. Make-up was thrown out after each person used it. It’s complicated. Everybody is in costumes, everybody in different tents and costume areas. Nobody got sick. We’re very grateful for that.
That presumably adds all kinds of costs and extra time?
It does, but to CNN’s credit they may have even asked us before we asked them. They were really careful and good about that.
What’s the difference between producing for a news network and a normal factual cablenet?
It’s all the same. You can’t distort the truth, you shouldn’t put in editorial opinion, they want the highest quality. But that’s how we always behave. We love this because learning about Lincoln is fun and interesting. It’s great to dig up facts that people don’t know. Did you know The Battle of Bull Run was originally a picnic? People were so convinced there wouldn’t really be a war that they showed up for the battle with picnic blankets, spectators came to watch, and very quickly it became a slaughter and people got up and ran. Those tidbits of history are so interesting to share.
Was it shopped around or was it always for CNN?
When I told CNN the Mary Lincoln story we hadn’t developed anything, their interest is why we developed it. We love working for them; the expectation of quality there and working with their execs is great. It brings out the best in people.
Glass used a story about Lincoln’s wife Mary when she pitched to CNN
With channels now so focused on their brands, are those days of shopping a project around eight or nine networks over?
No, it doesn’t work. It’s so specific now. One network was only [interested in] ghosts for a while. We came in with an insane idea called I Had Sex With a Ghost. We go in, we pitch it, she looks back and says, “Oh I hear that 10 times a day.” You realise because these networks are so specific that everybody is trying to think of a weird thing to put into this format. We have not had a lot of success with ghost networks because it’s hard to pitch without laughing.
But doesn’t that put your development costs through the roof?
We’ve always developed a lot. We will develop 50 ideas a year. We do our development in a different steps. We get an idea and we know the networks well enough to make a couple of calls before we go further. You used to make a reel and throw it to everybody – spray and pray. Now if we have an idea for History or Discovery we make a few calls. If one thinks it’s interesting we develop, if they all reject it we say no. We put a lot into development.
Do you anticipate moving further into premium docs?
Right now we have a big music doc and a big crime doc in the works. Series are better for you economically and our podcast division has grown so much and is a priority. But we’re a company that doesn’t specialise in one thing. If it sells and people like it then we do it. We’re doing Lincoln and at the same time doing five-minute episodes with a transgender wigmaker for SnapChat, with Cardi B farting through her whole episode. We have a range. It’s confusing to some people but it feels right for us.
How do you see 2021 panning out for your company?
It’s a complicated answer. Working from home, there are no more serendipitous acts of creativity. You don’t walk into somebody in the lunch room and say, “What about this and that?” It’s only appointments now. Will we go back to a full office? I suspect we won’t. Networks are also now thinking that if you were able to cut back and shoot more economically, why can’t you continue doing that?
