Who is Liz Garbus, the director Harry and Meghan entrusted with their Netflix docuseries?

Jacqui Palumbo, CNN

After much speculation over the fate of Netflix’s docuseries “Harry & Meghan,” the first three episodes finally arrive Thursday, offering an intimate look at the lives of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and, as the trailers suggest, further insight into why they stepped down from their royal duties.

But who is telling their story? The six-episode docuseries is directed by Liz Garbus, an Emmy-winning and two-time Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker who has tackled topics ranging from voter disenfranchisement in the US to the life of jazz singer Nina Simone.

“It’s nice to be able to trust someone with our story — a seasoned director whose work I’ve long admired — even if it means it may not be the way we would have told it,” Markle said about Garbus in a Variety interview earlier this year. “But that’s not why we’re telling it. We’re trusting our story to someone else, and that means it will go through their lens.”

Garbus’ voice can be heard in the official teaser for “Harry & Meghan” asking the couple, “Why did you want to make this documentary?”

The Duke of Sussex responds: “No one sees what’s happening behind closed doors.”

High-impact documentaries

Garbus has long handled complicated stories, ranging from systemic injustices to the lives of troubled public figures.

Her directorial debut, “The Farm: Angola, USA,” which she directed alongside Jonathan Stack and Wilbert Rideau in 1998, earned her first Academy Award nomination and an Emmy. The documentary followed the lives of several prisoners in the maximum-security Louisiana State Penitentiary, nicknamed Angola after the slave plantation that once occupied the site, and the deep racial divides between inmates and the administration.

Since then, she has produced a range of documentary work and sat in the director’s chair for the occasional scripted drama, including the Emmy-nominated season four finale of “The Handmaid’s Tale.”

In 2012, Garbus released “Love, Marilyn,” which featured A-Listers including Uma Thurman, Glenn Close and Viola Davis reading the memoirs of Marilyn Monroe. Her telling of Simone’s life, “What Happened, Miss Simone?” earned her her second Academy Award nomination. Since then, she’s taken on US politics in “The Fourth Estate,” “All In: The Fight for Democracy” and “Mayor Pete.” She also helmed the critically acclaimed docuseries “I’ll Be Gone in the Dark,” adapted from Michelle McNamara’s book about the true crime author’s personal, tireless hunt to uncover the identity of the Golden State Killer. McNamara died before his eventual arrest and sentencing.

Garbus and her husband, Oscar-winning producer Dan Cogan, co-founded a New York-based production company, Story Syndicate, in 2019. Recently, Garbus executive produced the Netflix series “Eat the Rich: The GameStop Saga.” Next up, she is directing two episodes of the Apple TV+ crime drama “City on Fire,” adapted from Garth Risk Hallberg’s debut novel about a NYU student shot in Central Park.

Volumes one and two of “Harry & Meghan” release December 8 and December 15, respectively. Prince Harry will have more to share with the world after the series concludes — his memoir “Spare” will be published in January.

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