THE EXACTING ART OF NOAH HAWLEY

One of TV's most distinctive and surprising creators tackles a classic

- ALAN SEPINWALL

WHEN A DIRECTOR arrives at a filming location, they have a lot of important tasks before the real work can begin. Department heads to consult. Actors to prep. Schedules to lock. When Noah Hawley got to Bangkok to direct the first episode of Alien: Earth, he also had to have suits made. “One of the first things I did upon landing was go to a tailor and work up, not a full wardrobe, but a way, through linen and cotton, to try to manage the heat, in a way that was the most stylish and comfortable,” explains Hawley, the always nattily dressed Emmy-winning creator of Fargo and Legion.

The bespoke wardrobe serves two purposes. One is that Hawley, 58, believes in dressing for the part when that part involves leadership. “We can get in trouble as artists who are also managers when we don’t understand the power of symbols,” he says. “The boss looks like the boss. No good comes from ‘I’m just like you.”

The other purpose speaks more to the artistic side. “He’s got an aesthetic point of view on the world,” says Hart Hanson, who gave Hawley his first regular TV job, writing for the Fox crime drama Bones. “That’s the director part of him.”