It took Alfonso Cuaron a year to shoot his show Disclaimer like a movie

The television landscape has been absolutely plagued (and probably irreversibly transformed) by the proliferation of shows that are really “eight hour movies,” or so the auteurs deigning to work in the medium might describe it. Not all television lovers appreciate this approach (if you’re going to make TV, why not make it TV?), but when it’s an Oscar-winning director like Alfonso Cuarón making a long-form “film” then perhaps it can be given a pass. Television writing “can be excellent; it can be astounding,” he said in a new profile for The New York Times, “But rarely are you confronted with a cinematic experience.” That’s what he wanted to bring to his Apple TV+ series—but approaching television cinematically has its drawbacks, as Cuarón can attest after the jaw-dropping year-long shoot for Disclaimer. 

Some of the Disclaimer delays were apparently COVID-related, but much of the lengthy production was due to Cuarón’s methods. Where a typical TV show would shoot seven or eight pages of script per day, Cuarón was shooting one page a day, “Because it’s so much about the choices and the decisions in the blocking, in the specificity of the movement,” he explained. At one point, star Sacha Baron Cohen spent half a day shooting a scene only to be told it was just a rehearsal; in another instance, production halted for two weeks to rebuild a set, he recalled. “That’s tough as an actor,” Baron Cohen admitted to the outlet. “But it’s with the aim of creating something that is magnificent. So however frustrating it can be, you have to remind yourself, I’m in the hands of a maestro and this is worth it.” 

Even so, Cuarón acknowledged “we were all exhausted” by the end of the shoot. “I didn’t sleep very much, and it wasn’t pleasant,” said star Cate Blanchett, who found it “really super exciting” to be invited “into a formal departure” by the filmmaker. The end result may have been labor intensive, “But it was very creatively fulfilling,” she said.