“Daisy Jones & the Six” executive producer and director Nzingha Stewart had a tall order in helming the second half of the limited series, but she took inspiration from a surprising place when it came to tackling these final episodes. James Ponsoldt directed the first five episodes of the adaptation of Taylor Jenkins Reid’s novel, but whereas the first half of the show charts the band’s rise, Stewart’s episodes find them on top of the world. That dichotomy is reflected in Martin Scorsese’s “Goodfellas,” and Stewart told TheWrap in a recent interview she kept going back to the gangster drama for inspiration.

“I felt like in ‘Goodfellas,’ it sort of worked like two movies. The first half of the movie, there’s a sense of innocence that they all have, and the second half, they’re as successful as they can be,” Stewart said. “They have the the drugs,...