by Gill Pringle in Los Angeles
Marking Robert De Niro’s first foray into episodic streaming (unless you count the epic The Irishman), Netflix’s political mini-series Zero Day sees the legendary actor bring all his gravitas into portraying a beloved former U.S. president, George Mullen.
Mullen is working on his memoirs while enjoying semi-retirement with judicial nominee wife Sheila (Joan Allen) in upstate New York when the U.S. is rattled by a cyberattack, crippling every system and causing thousands of fatalities.
Current president Evelyn Mitchell, played by Angela Bassett – yes, in this fantasy, voters have managed to elect a Black woman to the highest office – calls upon Mullen to head up the hastily scrambled Zero Day Commission.
Endowed with extraordinary powers to investigate the perpetrators behind the attack, Mullen is considered the best man for the job given the respect he has as the last president to rally bipartisan support. Everyone admires Mullen, including the Secret Service who refer to him by his code word “Legend”.
The ex-president swiftly assembles his team, including former aide Roger (Jesse Plemons) and former chief of staff Valerie, played by Connie Britton.
But not everyone is a fan of Mullen – including his own daughter Alexandra (Lizzy Caplan), a second-term congresswoman, and Evan Green (Dan Stevens), the scare-mongering and divisive host of a wildly popular political TV show.
Green will become a thorn in Mullen’s side as his loudest critic and public antagonist.
As disinformation runs rampant and the personal ambition of power brokers in technology, Wall Street, and government collide, Mullen’s unwavering search for the truth forces him to confront his own dark secrets.
Written and executive produced by Eric Newman and Noah Oppenheim, De Niro was the only person the Zero Day creators envisaged to portray the former president across the six-part series, during which he is on screen most of the time.
De Niro is typically nonchalant over his own reasons for signing on. “I was talking to my agent, Josh Lieberman, and we were talking about doing something in New York, so I could stay at home,” says the 81-year-old icon and two-time Oscar winner.
Nor did the script call for him to do a whole lot of research or physical preparation. “No, I felt that I was up to speed on what was happening in this world. It wasn’t something that I had to do research about, or about the physicality of the character and so on. I was basically myself.
“And I felt that the writing was really good, clear, and plus it was a thriller, so there was a lot of information to get out, and that is a thing in itself. That’s a task, if you will, to get the information out, and hopefully to get it out so that the audience doesn’t feel that you’re just getting it out, but that you have to get it out – it’s the only way to do it,” he adds.
For Dan Stevens, it was a thrill ride to portray De Niro’s nemesis Evan Green, whipping up popular opinion and extremist viewpoints about the Zero Day commission.
“Evan Green represents a corner of the media that claims to stand up for the common citizen, but he comes from a place of extreme wealth and privilege. We’re really trying to showcase the hypocrisy of people like that,” says Stevens.
“It’s a regrettable phenomenon of our age that people like Evan Green become these truth tellers, and everyone says, ‘Well, whatever he said’. And we blindly follow these people. I don’t think that’s a healthy place to be,” he argues.
Zero Day begs the question: how do we find the truth in an era rife with conspiracy theory and subterfuge?
“The interesting thing about it, is that not everything Evan Green says is totally false,” says Stevens. “And with a lot of these characters, it’s like, ‘well, actually, that’s kind of true, but everything else they’re saying is completely unacceptable.
“And as the sort of representative of the media, it’s like there is a pursuit of ratings, there is an answerability to investors that sometimes bypasses what is actually good and true in the pursuit of something that is just controversial and that’s going to get eyeballs on screens.
“Evan Green represents a corner of the landscape that operates around a story like this, and we tried not to base him too specifically on one particular personality. You can kind of choose your basement podcast host that annoys you the most – that he is based on. And the answer would be, yes, it’s based on them and a bunch of others. He is an annoying character who’s annoying to President Mullen, and these characters thrive on divisiveness. That’s their currency,” says Stevens, who describes working with De Niro as a “life goal achieved”.
For Connie Britton, it was a delight to be reunited with her old Friday Night Lights co-star Jesse Plemons.
“It’s really fun to be working with Jesse again. Obviously, these are very different characters for both of us. The relationship between Valerie and Roger is very prickly. It’s almost like Valerie is the one person in the show who knows so clearly exactly who he is. She sees right through him. Valerie has to tolerate Roger and keep him out of the way as much as possible, and keep him from doing damage as much as she can,” says the actress.
“But working with Robert De Niro is a dream come true. I am just constantly in awe of him. His stamina and professionalism are incredible. I just watch him and learn. No matter what your profession is, it’s wonderful to work with people who you know you can always learn something from. I have such enormous respect for him, and he’s a lot of fun. Despite the serious nature of the show, we do a lot of smiling and laughing,” she adds.
After signing on to play Mullen’s former aide, Plemons delved into an article about Doug Band, Bill Clinton’s former aide. “He was one of the many references for Roger, these people who devote themselves to one single person, and the ways in which that can become kind of murky.
“Roger and Mullen have a very interesting dynamic. Roger probably didn’t have the best example of a father figure, and Mullen probably saw things in Roger that he didn’t see in himself. It made him want to be better and move away from his more selfish instincts,” he says.
Speaking with all the Zero Day cast there is a general awareness of how the polarizing characters and premise of the show uncannily echo the current climate in Washington, DC.
“It feels a little too eerily realistic. All systems go offline for exactly one minute. Everything shuts down – cell phones, aviation towers, trains, stoplights. It’s an enormous catastrophe, even in just a single minute, causing thousands of deaths and chaos. You’re on the edge of your seat trying to figure out who did it,” says Lizzy Caplan.
“You watch the series, and you’re like, ‘oh, it’s so prescient’. And yet, with each day, with each week, we’re getting closer and closer…” she suggests.
“Yeah, it almost feels like we’re past it now. It’s a whole other deal now,” agrees Britton.
“Seriously. More things every day are like: ‘Yeah, we did that on a show’,” says Caplan.
Ask De Niro whether he thinks the world of Zero Day is scarier than the world we are in right now, he doesn’t hesitate. “Right now, our actual world is scarier,” he says.
Zero Day is streaming now.
