“I Made It Clear That I Wasn’t Just Going to Repeat How Evil He Was, That This Wasn’t a Rosenberg Revenge Film”: Ivy Meeropol on her HBO Doc Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn

I suppose it should come as no surprise that since the election of Donald Trump, Roy Cohn’s seemingly inexhaustible 15 minutes of fame have been extended yet again. Before his death from AIDS (or what he termed “liver cancer”) over three decades ago, Trump’s longtime mentor/lawyer/power broker/enforcer had spent his entire life reincarnating himself. Somehow the closeted homosexual and chief counsel to Senator Joseph McCarthy during the infamous Red Scare transformed what should have been an existence defined by shame into one of pure shamelessness — living the Studio 54 highlife with his mobster and celebrity friends, and never missing the opportunity to mix shady business with hedonistic pleasure.

But for director Ivy Meeropol (Heir to an Execution), who takes a deep and illuminating dive into this enigmatic, law-evading man’s life with her latest HBO doc, Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn, the brazenness is not only galling but personal. For Cohn first shot to fame straight out of law school with his prosecution of “atomic spies” Julius and Ethel Rosenberg — Meeropol’s grandparents. Their execution left her father and uncle orphans and spawned a legacy of heartbreak passed down to this very day.

Filmmaker caught up with Meeropol to find out more about her uniquely personal take on a man who shaped history in all the wrong ways prior to the film’s airdate on June 19th — the 67th anniversary of her grandparents’ execution.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.