{"id":654645,"date":"2025-02-25T18:50:20","date_gmt":"2025-02-25T15:50:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/de-niro-does-the-right-thing\/"},"modified":"2025-02-25T18:50:20","modified_gmt":"2025-02-25T15:50:20","slug":"de-niro-does-the-right-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/de-niro-does-the-right-thing\/","title":{"rendered":"#De Niro Does the Right Thing"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>[This story contains major spoilers from the finale of <em>Zero Day<\/em>.]<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tIs there a way out of our divided country\u2019s seemingly hopeless predicament? <em>Zero Day<\/em> offers both a skeptical and aspirational answer to the question.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tNetflix\u2018s conspiracy political thriller starring Robert De Niro, which is now streaming all six episodes, tackles truth and accountability in a post-truth era. A crippling cyberterrorism attack called a zero day event (a cyber breach targeting unknown vulnerabilities) downs dozens of U.S. systems for an entire minute, causing widespread catastrophe and the deaths of more than 3,000 people. Former President George Mullen (played by De Niro), who is described as being the last nonpartisan POTUS, leads a Zero Day Commission to uncover, by any means necessary, how and why this h<a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/download-scripts-themes-apps\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"9\" title=\"Download Scripts &amp; Themes &amp; Apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">app<\/a>ened, and prevent it from happening again.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tWhat Mullen discovers is that the zero day perpetrators are not from foreign soil. The attack was home grown \u2014 too close to home for Mullen. The co-conspirators were a group hailing from Big tech, like CEO\u00a0Monica Kidder (Gaby Hoffman), and the U.S. government \u2014 including the Speaker of the House (played by Matthew Modine) and Mullen\u2019s own daughter, Rep. Alexandra Mullen (Lizzy Caplan). <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tAn ideological Alexandra tells her father that her intentions were actually to unite the broken country. She rails about how America is so divided that Congress hasn\u2019t passed a single piece of legislation in 18 months. She never intended for anyone to get hurt. Dreyer similarly explains that they wanted to cut off the political fringe on both sides, expose a vulnerability that has been mistaken for freedom and then restore \u201ca shaken faith in our ability to govern.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tMullen is faced with an impossible choice when it comes to sharing his commission findings. Despite a plea from the current president (Angela Bassett) to not reveal the full truth, Mullen lays it all out in front of Congress and Americans watching at home. He reads a speech written to him by his daughter, who has decided to turn herself in. He then returns to an empty home, his wife (Joan Allen) having left him, with the idea of losing two children (after they lost their son to an overdose) being too much to bear. <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t\u201cGeorge Mullen does the right thing, and it costs him everything except his integrity,\u201d co-creator, co-showrunner and executive producer Eric Newman explains to <em>The Hollywood Reporter <\/em>of the ending and its larger takeaway. \u201cThe people who want these jobs to govern us have to understand that that is what is asked of them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tBoth Newman and co-creator\/executive producer Noah Oppenheim, the former president of NBC <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/news\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"2\" title=\"News\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">News<\/a>, who created the <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/watch-movies-tv-seriess\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"8\" title=\"Watch Movies &amp; TV Series\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">series<\/a> with <em>New York Times <\/em>journalist Michael S. Schmidt, agree that \u201cthe mechanism for which we determine truth is collectively broken,\u201d which makes their ending even more compelling. <em>Zero Day <\/em>also<em> <\/em>intentionally doesn\u2019t identify political parties, so as to not distract from the series. \u201cOne of the themes that we wanted to tackle from the very beginning was the question of what people in power are willing to do when they think they\u2019re saving the country,\u201d adds Oppenheim.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tWhen speaking to <em>THR<\/em> about his first TV role, De Niro agreed on the nonpartisan message. \u201cIt had to be more about an honesty between people in order to get anything done,\u201d he said of his character. The limited series begs the question of how <em>Zero Day<\/em>\u2018s version of America will pick up the pieces after this crisis, but Newman and Oppenheim won\u2019t be plotting that future. \u201cIt was always important to Bob that his character makes a sacrifice to do the right thing, which makes it almost impossible for him to go on in any leadership capacity,\u201d says Newman of the series truly being limited. De Niro also compared filming <em>Zero Day <\/em>to shooting three movies at once, and said he wasn\u2019t sure how quickly he\u2019d be returning to TV.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tSo, the minds behind<em> Zero Day<\/em> now offer viewers a chance to digest and think about the version of America they put forth. Below, in a chat with <em>THR<\/em>, Newman and Oppenheim discuss the parallels to real-life politicians and others in their orbit \u2014 some they predicted, but many they couldn\u2019t possibly have \u2014 while revealing the research that went into their cautionary tale in hopes it ends up being aspirational.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t***<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>I understand that <em>Zero Day<\/em> came out of a meeting you two had years ago, when Noah was still president of NBC News. Can you tell me when that meeting was and your seed for the show?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>ERIC NEWMAN: <\/strong>November of 2021, we had a meeting. At the time, Noah had already had a number of conversations with his childhood friend Mike Schmidt about a story he had been trying to run down about an investigation that was hindered by someone\u2019s mental acuity. I had asked Noah about where we were going as a country with our respective relationship with the truth, and his answer was alarming to me. He said that what should be objective fact becomes subjective, and there are competing truths that, despite being mutually exclusive, somehow coexist because people refuse to see it any other way. The combination of that idea, and the idea that Mike and Noah had been discussing, created the perfect story device to tell this story about the truth in a post-truth era.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>You then pitched the show to Robert De Niro. How much of the idea was formed when you brought it to him?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>NEWMAN:<\/strong> Bob got it instantly. We met Bob and sat down over dinner and told him the story, and he instantly was like, \u201cThat sounds great. I\u2019d like to read that.\u201d And, by the way, if I had a dollar for every time someone said, \u201dI can\u2019t wait to read that,\u201d I\u2019d be a rich man. But in his case, he read it im<a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/social-mediaa\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"1\" title=\"Social Media\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">media<\/a>tely and he loved it. He understood completely what we were trying to say and the themes the show presents and posits.<\/p>\n<div class=\"post-content-image \/\/  \">\n<figure class=\"o-figure   size-large alignnone lrv-u-max-width-100p\" style=\"width:3000px\">\n<div class=\"c-lazy-image  \">\n<div class=\"lrv-a-crop-16x9\" style=\"padding-bottom:calc((1498\/3000)*100%);\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"c-lazy-image__img lrv-u-background-color-grey-lightest lrv-u-width-100p lrv-u-display-block lrv-u-height-auto\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-hollywoodreporter-2021\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\" data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Zero_Day_n_S1_E1_00_39_12_21.jpg?w=3000\" alt=\"\" data-lazy-srcset=\"\" data-lazy-sizes=\"\" height=\"1498\" width=\"3000\" decoding=\"async\"\/><\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div><figcaption class=\"c-figcaption  lrv-u-padding-tb-025\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"a-font-secondary-s lrv-u-margin-r-025\">Robert De Niro as former President George Mullen (with Jesse Plemons, right).<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<cite class=\"a-font-accent-uppercase-xs lrv-u-color-grey-dark\">Netflix<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>So, you had your former president with De Niro\u2019s George Mullen, and then you would go on to cast Angela Bassett as the show\u2019s current president. Who were both of these presidents based on?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>NOAH OPPENHEIM:<\/strong> Neither of them are based on any one individual, but they both tap into important themes and emotional truths that we were trying to represent in a character. President Mullen is a figure who the country turns to in the aftermath of this catastrophic attack. People are terrified, seeking reassurance and comfort. You needed an actor who could immediately embody that dignity, reassurance and confidence. There\u2019s a pretty short list of people who can do that. Bob brings with him this long history with the audience so that immediately when you see him walk into the Oval office and he is handed the weight of this responsibility you think, \u201cThat makes sense. Here\u2019s a guy who can handle the task of recomforting the country, and who also has the inherent toughness to track down the truth.\u201d That\u2019s what also makes it so unsettling, when you start to see the cracks and you realize he may not be the guy everyone thinks he is.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tWith Angela, you needed a current president who had the self confidence to hand the reins over to somebody else in this moment, and who had so much else going on. She has an agenda in the show that is not immediately clear. When she hands over the investigation to President Mullen, she has the reasons that she states openly for doing so, and then she has the reasons that she\u2019s holding back from him and from the audience. So that is somebody who immediately when you see them in the Oval office behind the desk you think, \u201cthis person belongs there.\u201d They are incredible in all the scenes they have together, you feel like you have two titans going head to head.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>I\u2019m very curious about all of the research that went into plotting <em>Zero Day<\/em>. I\u2019ve read that veteran Washington staffers consulted on the series, and that De Niro brought in Cold War-era CIA sources for his preparation as Mullen. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>OPPENHEIM: <\/strong>What Eric has done in all of his shows, from <em>Narcos<\/em> to <em>Painkiller<\/em>, is that he\u2019s really made a commitment to authenticity. He was hugely insistent that this show reflect that as well, even though it\u2019s taking place in a fictional world. We\u2019ve had the benefit that I\u2019ve spent this other life and career in journalism. I\u2019ve spent 25 years covering politics and so I\u2019m fortunate enough to know and have been present behind closed doors in the White House, on Capitol Hill and in government agencies. Then Mike Schmidt still to this day covers politics. So we really tapped into all of our networks of experts currently and formerly serving government officials to find out, how would this actually unfold? What would these conversations really sound like? We wanted it to be as real as possible.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>In the series, in the days and weeks after the attack, we see that America is on the brink of societal collapse. In your research and in making this show, what\u2019s scarier: the world of <em>Zero Day <\/em>or our current world?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t[<em>Both laugh<\/em>]<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>NEWMAN: <\/strong>We talk about that all the time. Because I\u2019m not a pessimist but I try to be self-aware, I\u2019m thinking, what is the thing where we could come up short? Is the reality that we face scarier than the reality of our show? I think no, but we could get there pretty quickly. The pace at which things move and things happen, and the cascading nature of shit going south, anything can happen. There have been 20 things that if you had told me in 1999 were going to happen in the next 25 years I would have said you\u2019re out of your mind, you don\u2019t know what you\u2019re talking about. And here we are.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>Eric, how did having partners in Noah and Michael S. Schmidt (co-creator and EP), given their political journalism backgrounds, help you fact check. What were some things you changed?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>NEWMAN: <\/strong>There were numerous things that we would get right after [these conversations]. Noah knows this world better than anyone. Between Noah, Mike, Eric Schulz, who worked in communications for Obama and continues to, and Jeremy Bash [former\u00a0chief of staff at the CIA and the Pentagon under Obama], there were a lot of people who were able to say, \u201cYeah, that\u2019s not how it works.\u201d We are replicating a world that exists right now and so there\u2019s no shortage of people who can offer their consulting services.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>OPPENHEIM: <\/strong>If anything, we\u2019ve been most surprised by the number of things we were writing that felt, at the time, were a little bit of a leap. Like, here were going to take some creative liberty for the purpose of entertainment and drama, and now those things have actually played out in the real world. Literally half a dozen instances where writing it we were like, \u201cOk, this is where we\u2019re going to have some fun with it.\u201d And then we proceeded to see the real world catch up to that.<\/p>\n<div class=\"post-content-image \/\/  \">\n<figure class=\"o-figure   size-large alignnone lrv-u-max-width-100p\" style=\"width:881px\">\n<div class=\"c-lazy-image  \">\n<div class=\"lrv-a-crop-16x9\" style=\"padding-bottom:calc((565\/881)*100%);\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"c-lazy-image__img lrv-u-background-color-grey-lightest lrv-u-width-100p lrv-u-display-block lrv-u-height-auto\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-hollywoodreporter-2021\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\" data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Zero-Day-still-4-publicity-H-2025-e1740436219108.png?w=881\" alt=\"\" data-lazy-srcset=\"\" data-lazy-sizes=\"\" height=\"565\" width=\"881\" decoding=\"async\"\/><\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div><figcaption class=\"c-figcaption  lrv-u-padding-tb-025\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"a-font-secondary-s lrv-u-margin-r-025\">Robert De Niro as former President George Mullen.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<cite class=\"a-font-accent-uppercase-xs lrv-u-color-grey-dark\">Netflix<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>I was going to ask you about that because you have the parallel between De Niro\u2019s cognitive state being questioned and former President Joe Biden stepping back from reelection. [<em>Note<\/em>: <em>Zero Day wrapped filming in June of 2024 before Biden would ultimately step down to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris.<\/em>] Are there other examples you can share, particularly with this show coming out so soon after President Trump\u2019s reelection?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>OPPENHEIM:<\/strong> We just came out of a presidential election where we had two of the oldest candidates in history, so the idea of people in power facing cognitive challenges is not specific to President Biden. However, the way in which that came front and center during the campaign was certainly something we could not have anticipated when we were writing Mullen\u2019s storyline. Obviously, the controversy and dilemma over what happens when the child of a powerful person commits a crime and then their parent is in a position to potentially save them from the consequences, is something we\u2019ve seen play out in a really interesting way. And then, one of the themes that we wanted to tackle from the very beginning was the question of what people in power are willing to do when they think they\u2019re saving the country. How many norms they\u2019re willing to blow through and how many laws they are willing to break if they feel like their cause is righteous? Those are both timeless questions, and also very timely.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>NEWMAN:<\/strong> There\u2019s a great quote that I love that originated from Goethe, the German philosopher, which is that if you give someone a choice between disorder and injustice, they will chose injustice every time. What people do in crisis, what they\u2019re willing to do and, perhaps more significantly, what they\u2019re willing to have done to them when their order is threatened and when they\u2019re scared. When whatever system of government, likely some supremacy, is threatened, people will do anything. They will give up almost anything to feel security. Nothing that anyone does in our show do we believe is something someone wouldn\u2019t do. And not only would they do it, they would have a justification that in the right light would make sense to you.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>Some of the characters are very of this exact moment, particularly with the tech leaders.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>NEWMAN:<\/strong> Obviously, we don\u2019t want any people in the tech world making any decisions about what we can and can\u2019t do, and I certainly wouldn\u2019t want anyone having access to my tax records or whatever, but the Elon Musk thing is a bit of a surprise.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>OPPENHEIM: <\/strong>If anything, what this has shown is the extent to which history rhymes. There\u2019s this notion that you see these patterns repeating themselves and whether it was the robber barons of the 19th century or these tech billionaires of today, this tension between the rich and powerful in this country and our democratic institutions has always existed. It\u2019s been interesting to see how an idea that we were writing about three years ago is playing out today. That doesn\u2019t mean that we\u2019re prophetic in any way, that\u2019s just been a throughline of American history.<\/p>\n<div class=\"post-content-image \/\/  \">\n<figure class=\"o-figure   size-large alignnone lrv-u-max-width-100p\" style=\"width:1296px\">\n<div class=\"c-lazy-image  \">\n<div class=\"lrv-a-crop-16x9\" style=\"padding-bottom:calc((730\/1296)*100%);\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"c-lazy-image__img lrv-u-background-color-grey-lightest lrv-u-width-100p lrv-u-display-block lrv-u-height-auto\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-hollywoodreporter-2021\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\" data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/ZERODAY_102_240419_JW_04908_R-H-2025.jpg?w=1296\" alt=\"\" data-lazy-srcset=\"\" data-lazy-sizes=\"\" height=\"730\" width=\"1296\" decoding=\"async\"\/><\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div><figcaption class=\"c-figcaption  lrv-u-padding-tb-025\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"a-font-secondary-s lrv-u-margin-r-025\">Gaby Hoffmann as tech CEO Monica Kidder. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<cite class=\"a-font-accent-uppercase-xs lrv-u-color-grey-dark\">Jojo Whilden\/Netflix<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>You tackle fears around Big tech, disinformation, a divided country, distrust in the government\u2026 but then you deliver this aspirational ending that we don\u2019t typically see in political thrillers. Is <em>Zero Day<\/em> a cautionary tale or is it hopeful? Where do each of you land on that and what you want people to take away?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>NEWMAN:<\/strong> For me, it\u2019s undeniable that the mechanism for which we determine truth is collectively broken, or at least we\u2019re using a different metric or translator. I believe what that means is that the pressure is on what do you do with that information, your truth. The right thing becomes even more important. Actually being able to make a difficult decision, do the right thing, even when you\u2019re not entirely sure what the truth is, there\u2019s still an objectivity in that.<strong> <\/strong>The character of George Mullen does the right thing, and it costs him everything except his integrity. The people who want these jobs to govern us have to understand that that is what is asked of them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>OPPENHEIM: <\/strong>I\u2019m so glad you found it to be an optimistic ending, because that is the intent. As Eric said, as broken as our institutions and our media landscape may be, each and every one of us does still have a moral compass. All of us make a series of decisions every day when we wake up in the morning. It could be how we conduct ourselves when we go to the grocery store or when we go pick up our kids at school. But all those decisions, small ones, add up and we can be decent and kind and generous to our neighbors if we choose.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>There\u2019s a message for everyone in this show, but it does feel like De Niro\u2019s character is speaking to politicians saying, \u201cThis is the person you could be.\u201d Has there been any buzz in political circles about the show and do you hope politicians watch?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>NEWMAN:<\/strong> Noah knows this world better than I do. I know a few of these people. I don\u2019t know what they watch but yes, of course. You hope it prompts some conversation. We\u2019re doing press now and people are asking interesting questions about how we see art and what art\u2019s role is in times like this when there is such a disconnect. Our hope is that people will watch it without feeling it\u2019s political and understand the message, even if it\u2019s from their own lens.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tIt\u2019s something I\u2019ve said to you a number of time about <em>Narcos<\/em>, the thing that really surprised and pleased me about <em>Narcos<\/em> was that from either side \u2014 the side that believes the drug war is a battle we have to win and can win, or the side, like me, that believes in the futility of the drug war and the fact that we will never solve a problem by attacking the supply and ignoring the demand \u2014\u00a0both sides were able to be educated to the extent of the proliferation of cocaine and how much we are importing into this country. Similarly, they might not agree on how to do it but I don\u2019t think you can watch our show and not think there\u2019s something wrong with our civilization that we\u2019ve moved this far away in terms of our interpretation of the truth. That\u2019s my hope. Whether they are politicians or voters, they look at it and go, \u201cWow that does feel like our world and we need to start to address this in some way.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>OPPENHEIM:<\/strong> The reality is that the places where these conversations would have been had 25 years ago no longer exist. Or they don\u2019t exist in such a way that you can have a conversation between two sides where anyone is persuaded. So ironically, for better or worse, a thriller on Netflix that is built first and foremost to be entertaining is probably one of the few places where you are going to get people with all sets of beliefs all having a shared experience. Maybe that\u2019s a place where people can start to collectively think about the problems that we confront.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>You don\u2019t identify political parties in <em>Zero Day<\/em>, was that an easy decision to make or did you debate it?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>OPPENHEIM:<\/strong> It was an easy decision because we\u2019re not making any partisan statement with the show. Our hope was to build something that plays as a really compelling whodunnit, that plays as a propulsive thriller and keeps people entertained through six episodes. Trying to put partisan labels on individual characters frankly is a distraction from that. It\u2019s also about multi-dimensional people and, having been around politicians as long as I have, there are very few of them who fall cleanly into the bucket of hero or villain. They are all complicated and if you put a partisan label on somebody it\u2019s an obstacle to complexity.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>We never get an answer on if President Mullen was cognitively declining, if he was poisoned by a neurological weapon or if he was simply cracking under immense pressure. Why did you leave that open ended?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>NEWMAN: <\/strong>Like the theme of our show, it is open to interpretation. You can see what you want to see and it doesn\u2019t change where we end up. It was an interesting experience for me. You have to make a decision when you write something and at some point, Noah and I decided that it was happening. Whether we ever truly confirm it and provide incontrovertible evidence that it\u2019s happening or not, for us it <em>was<\/em> happening. When I watch it now, it\u2019s an interesting thing. Even though we decided, I kind of feel like it wasn\u2019t happening!<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>OPPENHEIM<\/strong> (<em>Laughs<\/em>)<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>NEWMAN:<\/strong> <em>Taxi Driver<\/em> is one of my favorite movies ever. There\u2019s a sequence at the end that I\u2019m convinced is a dream. I had the opportunity to ask Paul Schrader, who wrote <em>Taxi Driver<\/em>, about the scene. I said, \u201cWas that a dream?\u201d He said, \u201cNo, it\u2019s not a dream.\u201d And honestly, I don\u2019t agree with him! I think that\u2019s the way we experience stories. There is some subjectivity to interpretation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>OPPENHEIM:<\/strong> It\u2019s not only how we experience stories but how we experience life. Two people can go into a room, have a conversation and emerge with a completely different understanding of what took place inside that room. You multiply that at scale and you add in the technological revolution that\u2019s taken place in the last 20 years and that\u2019s what\u2019s landed us here. You could take even the same set of facts to some extent and, depending on how you arrange them \u2014 which ones you omit, which ones you prioritize \u2014 come away with a completely different understanding of what has happened. Like Eric said, whether or not it was a weapon or whether or not it was something going on inside Mullen, it doesn\u2019t change the impact it had on the course of the investigation. And even if we said one thing, if it were convenient or comforting to a group of people to believe the other thing, they would believe the other thing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>What did you base Proteus on?<\/strong> <strong>The show\u2019s neurological weapon.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>OPPENHEIM:<\/strong> It\u2019s inspired by the phenomenon dubbed Havana syndrome, which is these American diplomats beginning with the U.S. and then in Cuba waking up with symptoms that mirrored brain trauma. It\u2019s happened subsequently in Vienna and in locations all over the world impacting CIA officers and senior U.S. diplomats, and there\u2019s an ongoing and still open debate within the U.S. intelligence community whether this is the result of most likely Russia using some kind of neurological weapon against government officials or whether it\u2019s some sort of mass hysteria or some sort of other explanation. But it\u2019s still very much a heatedly debated topic and a very real thing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong><em>Zero Day<\/em> is a limited series. You leave us in a place where you could certainly follow how the country picks back up after this crisis. Is this series definitely done?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>NEWMAN:<\/strong> Right now it feels like we said what we need to say and could only muck it up by doing more! We may one day call each other and be like, \u201cWhat if this happens\u2026?\u201d It was always important to Bob that, at the end of the day, his character makes a sacrifice to do the right thing, which makes it almost impossible for him to go on in any leadership capacity. It\u2019s a great world though, we had fun in it. So I think we definitely would revisit the political thriller conspiracy story. We\u2019d do anything with Bob because we love him. It was a great cast and team. We loved working with [<em>Zero Day <\/em>director] Lesli Linka Glatter, she\u2019s truly the hardest working woman in show business. It\u2019s not an easy thing to say we wouldn\u2019t continue, but at the same time, no immediate plans.<\/p>\n<div class=\"post-content-image \/\/  \">\n<figure class=\"o-figure   size-large alignnone lrv-u-max-width-100p\" style=\"width:1296px\">\n<div class=\"c-lazy-image  \">\n<div class=\"lrv-a-crop-16x9\" style=\"padding-bottom:calc((730\/1296)*100%);\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"c-lazy-image__img lrv-u-background-color-grey-lightest lrv-u-width-100p lrv-u-display-block lrv-u-height-auto\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-hollywoodreporter-2021\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\" data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Zero-Day-still-5-publicity-H-2025.png?w=1296\" alt=\"\" data-lazy-srcset=\"\" data-lazy-sizes=\"\" height=\"730\" width=\"1296\" decoding=\"async\"\/><\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div><figcaption class=\"c-figcaption  lrv-u-padding-tb-025\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"a-font-secondary-s lrv-u-margin-r-025\">Matthew Modine as Speaker Dreyer and Lizzy Caplan as Alexandra Mullen.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<cite class=\"a-font-accent-uppercase-xs lrv-u-color-grey-dark\">Netflix<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>When did you write the finale?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>NEWMAN: <\/strong>We were supposed to shoot in June of \u201823 and the strike derailed us on our first day, so we had written the finale certainly I think by the spring of \u201823.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>Did you make any changes when you came back to filming?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>OPPENHEIM: <\/strong>Not dramatic. Nothing major, no.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>When you imagine the next day after<em> Zero Day<\/em> ends, is it a country healing after the truth or one that remains divided?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>OPPENHEIM:<\/strong> (<em>Laughs<\/em>) We might have two different opinions about this. Looking at the world that we live in, I think you wake up the next day and Speaker Dreyer [Matthew Modine] is a hero to half the country. He claims he\u2019s been falsely accused. I think you have a media ecosystem that is claiming this was all George Mullen\u2019s fever dreams and that he\u2019s maligning his political opponents. It\u2019s possible that Alexandra Mullen [Lizzy Caplan], whether she wants to be or not, has become a hero and a martyr, and I think you have another set of people who are trying to fight back but who have lost the moral high ground because of the abuses of the Zero Day Commission and probably have much less of a leg to stand on in trying to combat that. Doesn\u2019t look pretty to me!<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>NEWMAN:<\/strong> I\u2019m slightly more optimistic. I agree with everything Noah says except I think that in the center of it all is a strengthening of the middle. Certainly, if you\u2019re inclined to believe those are the bad guys and we\u2019re the good guys, you\u2019ve calcified further into that position. And the converse is true. But I also think there is a group in the middle that\u2019s like, \u201cWow, we got a problem here. This is a constitutional crisis.\u201d Our favorite characters to write were Roger Carlson, Jesse Clemons\u2019 slightly scumbaggy lobbyist, and Matthew Modine because he\u2019s kinda right. There\u2019s nothing he says that you don\u2019t say, \u201cYeah I would kind of like to see that. If you told me that you\u2019ll get rid of your fringe crazies and we\u2019ll get rid of our fringe crazies and everything will be fine, I like that idea. I can support that.\u201d There\u2019s no way to do that without undermining the very thing that we would be saving. It\u2019s that old Vietnam adage that you have to burn the village to save it, and that just doesn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>OPPENHEIM:<\/strong> I like your optimism, though, about the middle being reinvigorated. The funny thing about leadership is that you don\u2019t know where it\u2019s necessarily going to come from next. That is the beauty of imagining what the world looks like the day after: the character who could emerge from the aftermath who has watched this all happen and realized, \u201cIf we don\u2019t do something to fix all of this, we\u2019re going off a cliff.\u201d And how that person gets a handle on things and has their voice heard.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>Comparisons have been made to your characters: Alexandra Mullen (Lizzy Caplan), a rising AOC-esque star; Evan Green\u2019s (Dan Stevens)<strong> radical host<\/strong>, like\u00a0Tucker Carlson and\u00a0Ben Shapiro;\u00a0and Angela Bassett\u2019s President Mitchell, Kamala Harris. Are these characters more like amalgamations?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>OPPENHEIM: <\/strong>There aren\u2019t any one-for-one comparisons for any of them. They\u2019re all composites and all inspired by a collection of people.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>NEWMAN:<\/strong> That was all by design. Any time we have in an interview suggested someone, it was more in answer to someone being put forward. The last thing we wanted was someone to say, \u201cThat\u2019s so clearly so and so,\u201d and that includes the tech space. There are a variety of types in the tech space, from Peter Thiel to Elon Musk, who do different things, but the relationship between tech and politics is the same as the relationship between John D. Rockefeller and politics, and Andrew Carnegie and politics, and so and so.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<strong>OPPENHEIM:<\/strong> It\u2019s also important to say that these characters are not archetypes designed to represent specific forces in our government or in our culture. They\u2019re hopefully people. Alexandra Mullen is the daughter of a beloved former president. That\u2019s a unique burden to bear if you are trying to carve your own path in public service, and that\u2019s not something that I think there is a specific real-world parallel for.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t***<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tZero Day<em> is now streaming on Netflix.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/publications\/CAAqBwgKMN63nwsw68G3Aw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>If you want to read more Like this articles, you can visit our <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/category\/social-mediaa\/\" target=\"_blank\" >Social Media category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: black;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/tv\/tv-features\/zero-day-ending-explained-creators-robert-de-niro-1236145609\/\" target=\"_blank\" >Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[This story contains major spoilers from the finale of Zero Day.] Is there a way out of our divided country\u2019s seemingly hopeless predicament? Zero Day offers both a skeptical and aspirational answer to the question. Netflix\u2018s conspiracy political thriller starring Robert De Niro, which is now streaming all six episodes, tackles truth and accountability in&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":654646,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Zero-Day-still-1-publicity-H-2025.png?w=1296&h=730&crop=1","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[97162,14925,136533,70495,75501,1377,136534,19801,137524],"class_list":["post-654645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-social-mediaa","tag-angela-bassett","tag-dan-stevens","tag-eric-newman","tag-lizzy-caplan","tag-narcos","tag-netflix","tag-noah-oppenheim","tag-robert-de-niro","tag-zero-day"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=654645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654645\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/654646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=654645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=654645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=654645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}