Ron Howard could’ve coasted for the rest of his life on his beloved work as an actor on The Andy Griffith Show and Happy Days, not to mention films like The Shootist and American Graffiti. But by the time he was in his teens, he’d already sensed that his true destiny was behind the camera rather than in front of it. Dozens of films and a few Oscars later, Howard is now finally turning back to television—as the director on the first episode of Genius, the National Geographic Channel’s event series about the life of Albert Einstein that premieres Tuesday. It’s the first time Howard has directed a TV movie since 1981’s The Time Crystal, a.k.a. Through the Magic Pyramid. (Check it out, kids!)

Howard spoke with Vanity Fair about his fascination with Einstein and his return to the small screen, as well as The Dark Tower, the next season of Arrested Development, his possible return to This Is Us, and how a mediocre sitcom led him to a life as a director.

Vanity Fair: You’ve said that you’ve been fascinated with Albert Einstein since you were a kid.

Ron Howard: I’ve always been fascinated by the possibility of an Einstein movie, but I never felt that there was the narrative shape there to support a movie. It was always frustrating. It was always hurried or rushed, or it was too narrow a scope. So I’d never gotten involved with any of [those projects]. But I read this one with a lot of curiosity.

It turns out that this had been developed for, gosh, probably six or seven years—based on Walter Isaacson’s book [Einstein: His Life and Universe]—as a feature, and they had shaped it instead into a 10-hour series proposal with a screenplay by Noah Pink for the first hour. And I was really taken by it. I realized how little I actually knew about Einstein, how much drama there was in his life, how many twists and turns there were, how much pressure there was on him.

I’d been looking for an opportunity to direct something for TV for our company at Imagine; like everyone else, I see how wonderful and ambitious the work is on television these days, and I’ve been wanting to be a part of it. And this was a rare opportunity and—interestingly—one where the network itself actually informs the project. For National Geographic to deal with the subject of Albert Einstein, it creates kind of an understanding as to what its ambitions are going to be and what the demands are on the creative team.

Having seen the first two episodes, I can testify that it’s very visually appealing.