‘We Were the Lucky Ones’: Thomas Kail on the Emotional Finale Episode

Growing up, Thomas Kail—the Tony award-winning and Emmy-nominated director—loved It’s A Wonderful Life. “We were this Jewish family living in Northern Virginia and my mother loved Jimmy Stewart. That movie was always on,” Kail told The Daily Beast’s Obsessed over Zoom. Though he was unaware that directing was even a job at the time, Kail’s discovery of who made the film—Frank Capra—sent him on a journey to discover what else Capra made, and who inspired him to make films.