Hundreds of hours of award-winning film and television. Millions of viewers around the world. Collaboration with the biggest actors in Hollywood: Jane Fonda, Colin Firth, Don Cheadle, Al Pacino, Betty White… Dennie Gordon can trace it all back to Gustavus.
Particularly, “the legendary Mrs. A”—Gustavus professor Evelyn Anderson, whom Gordon performed for in high school drama competitions in the Minneapolis suburb of Robbinsdale. “I couldn’t wait to get to the theatre named after her,” Gordon says. It was newly built, and Gordon made it her own too, majoring in what was then called Theatre and Speech, with a second major in English. Unable to afford four years at Gustavus, Gordon finished in three while juggling roles in multiple productions: Macbeth, Guys and Dolls, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, The Three Sisters. Theatre professor Rob Gardner even handed her mainstage directing reins to Samuel Beckett’s End Game. Gordon relished every challenge.
Then he challenged her to apply to Yale.
She was skeptical. There’d be thousands of applicants and four admits to the prestigious master’s program in directing. She got in, and was one of the first women to graduate from the program. “My professors saw something in me that I did not see in myself.”
Big breaks sometimes have privilege attached to them. Not so for Gordon. “There was no rich uncle,” she says, though she was born into a family of literal pioneer women whom, she says, “didn’t take no for an answer.” Her early breaks came from that girt, and from a Gustavus-honed excellence. Her mentors—Mrs. A, professor Gardner, and English’s Larry Owen and John Rezmerski—taught “discipline, craft, and dedication. They taught me the love of being an artist. These are the people who made me who I am today.”
So when the short film she made at Yale was seen by some guy named George Lucas, he financed the audio mix to finish it because it was excellent. It won awards on the awards circuit, which earned Gordon her first television directing gig, for the 1990s family drama Picket Fences.
From there, it’s been three decades of television and film. Chicago Hope, Party of Five, Ally McBeal, The Practice, Sports Night, Tracey Takes On, 30 Rock, Burn Notice, Madam Secretary. The TV miniseries Waco. The superhero series Legion. Cult classics Joe Dirt and What a Girl Wants. The first film in the Chinese market directed by a woman, My Lucky Star, which was a number one film in China for four weeks on 5,000 screens.
Just to name a few.
Plus, the upcoming origin story of a beloved literary character: Young Sherlock, just released on Amazon Prime.
Clearly Gordon is known for her range. “I went from The Office to Jack Ryan. It’s the extraordinary variety of what I can do. Sci-Fi, non-stop action, and incredible performances. It’s not just a fantastic car chase. I truly care about the truth in the performance.” Care is a big word for Gordon. More than all other artistic mediums, film and television require a highly relational kind of collaboration, and a leader who can facilitate it among five to five hundred crewmembers, each with their own specialties and ideas. “I am always busy trying to get people into a safe space, to feel like their input is extremely valuable. I keep hearing that. ‘You really care.’ That goes back to my Minnesota roots, and it’s one of my hallmarks.”
Care begets excellence, she says. “If you care, you’re not going to accept mediocre. Everybody around you will step up and care just as much.” And in her business, excellence is a non-negotiable. “We’re making something that’s going to be around forever. If an actor comes to set and they don’t know their lines or they haven’t done the work, I don’t want to work with them. Step up or get out. Nobody gets to skate.”
It’s a hard stance for a hard business, and it comes from the right place. Says her friend and frequent collaborator Francisco Ortiz, “When she walks into the room, people take notice. She’s also a warm and generous person.” Clearly, it’s a mix that works.
“This career path has taken me tremendous endurance and patience,” Gordon says. It’s taken that Minnesota pioneer spirit. And it’s inspired by the professors who taught her, “We are put on this earth to love and inspire one another and to create something everlasting,” she says. “The great blessing of this college is to dream as big as you dare and watch this institution get you to where you’re going. And then keep going, and keep going, and keep going.”
