Docuseries Madoff: The Monster of Wall Street debuts on Netflix January 4. There are four episodes. Joe Berlinger directs.

The series “reveals the truth behind Bernie Madoff’s infamous $64 billion global Ponzi scheme, the largest in history, that shattered the lives of countless individual investors who had placed their trust in the revered Wall Street statesman,” said Netflix. “With unique access to whistleblowers, employees, investigators, and victims, and never-before-seen video depositions of Madoff himself, this four-part documentary series traces Madoff’s rise from humble beginnings to one of the most influential power brokers on Wall Street.”

Netflix said the project details how Madoff’s fraud was the work of more than one individual. It “reveals a cadre of co-conspirators and a financial system rife with institutions that were willing to turn a blind eye to Madoff’s suspicious behavior, prompting the obvious nagging question: Could such a blatant and destructive fraud happen again?”

Madoff died in 2021. 

Berlinger’s work includes Conversations with a Killer, Crime Scene and Brother's Keeper. ■ 

The title is revealing, in terms of whether or not this HBO Films look at Bernie Madoff’s $65 billion Ponzi scheme will spread blame beyond Madoff (played Robert De Niro) to other members of his family, mainly wife Ruth (Michelle Pfeiffer) or sons Mark (Alessandro Nivola) and Andrew (Nathan Darrow).

He does lie when he says that he acted alone: The decision to set up fake accounts with fake trades to support fake income paid to investors was his, but Madoff had plenty of help carrying out the massive fraud from Frank DiPascali, the crude henchman played here to perfection by Hank Azaria.

Anytime the sons tried to find out more about the secretive Madoff advisory business, though, Bernie bluntly put them in their place and made poor Mark feel he must apologize even for asking.

De Niro’s Madoff doesn’t exude charm. At times, he sounds a bit like Jimmy “the Gent” Conway from Goodfellas when getting angry, scolding his 8-year-old granddaughter for bothering him with questions at dinner about Wall Street’s meltdown, for example. Mostly he’s either stressed out and edgy or passively trying to gain sympathy after getting caught.

Diana B. Henriques, the New York Times reporter who interviewed Madoff in prison (and whose book on Madoff is a source for the screenplay), plays herself and helps hold the story together nicely, asking Madoff the hard questions and getting mostly evasive answers.

Actor Hank Azaria once again steps onto the scripted series field, this time as a boozing, down-on-his-luck minor-league baseball announcer in IFC’s new comedy series Brockmire.

Azaria, who lends his voice to Fox’s long-running animated hit The Simpsons and more recently appeared in Showtime’s Ray Donovan, spoke with Multichannel News programming editor R. Thomas Umstead about the new show and his love for sports-themed projects, as well as the opportunities for creating content in a competitive, multiplatform television industry. An edited transcript follows.

MCN:How did you come up with the concept for Brockmire?
Hank Azaria: It’s an idea that I’ve had in one way, shape or form since I was a teenager — the idea of a baseball announcer and whether they really sound in real life like they do during a broadcast. We did a short at Funny or Die about it a few years ago, and that went well, but once [Brockmire writer Joel Church-Cooper] started writing them and fleshing them out, it really came to life.

Related: IFC's 'Brockmire' Trailer

MCN:With scripted sports shows, is there a fine line you have to walk between providing authentic sports action to cater to sports fans while keeping it entertaining for nonsports fans?
HA: When it’s done well, it’s amazing, and those are some of my favorite movies like The Bad News Bears or Slapshot or Hoosiers. Joel and I share a huge love of the sport, of broadcasters, of movies and of TV shows like that. Baseball is a metaphor for the aging — and maybe dying — America, and Joel is able to capture that and make it funny in the embodiment of this man that gets caught up in nostalgia — forget about 1978 for him, but 1948. Some of the best sports stuff does that; it realizes how the sport is a metaphor for something bigger.

MCN:Was this the perfect time to pitch Brockmire, given the number of distribution platforms and outlets available to content providers?
HA: Yes. There’s more and more competition as more people realize that cable in particular is a great place to creatively do what you want to do. A show like this could not have existed maybe even five years ago — certainly not 10 years ago — and definitely not on a [broadcast] network, just for language alone. I’ve been wanting to make shows like this for years, so it’s very gratifying to be able to do it.

Related > MCN Review: 'Brockmire' Takes a Swing for the Fences

MCN:Having done both television and movies, do you find working on a scripted series easier or harder than on a theatrical film?
HA: Shooting is shooting, especially nowadays where everything is so good on cable. I’ve done movies that are a lot worse that what we see on cable now — it all feels very creative.

MCN:What other projects are you working on?
HA: Hopefully we’ll do season two of this, and I have a movie coming out on HBO with [Robert] De Niro called The Wizard of Lies about the Bernie Madoff scandal. I also have a movie coming out called Norman with Richard Gere, and, of course, The Simpsons always.