Issa López was a niche horror auteur from Mexico City when HBO enlisted her to create a fourth season of its franchise. She then penned and directed all six episodes of , which co-stars Jodie Foster and Kali Reis as Alaskan law enforcement investigating the death of a group of scientists bizarrely entombed in a 2,000-pound hunk of ice that’s dubbed a “corpsicle” by Foster’s character, Liz Danvers. The macabre reboot drew a new wave of admirers — even if series creator Nic Pizzolatto wasn’t among them (he called the season “insulting” and a “hot mess” on Instagram).
López checked in with the morning of the show’s 12 Emmy noms, including outstanding limited or anthology series. I’m a Mexican immigrant. I moved to the U.
S. in 2009 and this is the first time after many, many years of developing things that I actually made something in English — and with an international impact like this. It’s surreal.
I need to take a breath and understand what just happened, because it’s huge. Well, I do hope. When I grew up, there was no role model for what I was doing.
I grew up in awe of movies like , which is the reason I went for Jodie Foster. There was not a Mexican woman that was playing in that field. There were some Mexican directors there.
But the Mexican women playing on that level didn’t exist. I do hope that for the next generation of Mexican and Latin American female directors, the view of one of us kicking the door open and keeping it open for t.