Meryl Streep and Adam McKay Talk “Don’t Look Up”

MERYL STREEP, OSCAR WINNING ACTRESS: And if there’s one thing that I hope that movie does is like, I hope that it reaches the mothers of the wives and the grandmothers who are married to the people who sit on the 100 corporation boards and 100 corporations that are responsible for most of the carbon emissions, and to say to them, your husband’s driving a car, all the kids are in the back. And he’s driving it straight for a cliff. And you’re in the front seat. So you have to grab the wheel. Because these boards are mostly men and they are not thinking about their grandchildren. And if the movie can’t get to them, I will I hope it does.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: I wonder whether you was surprised Adam, sort of polarizing reaction to it. It’s one of the most successful films that Netflix has ever had. 350 million viewing hours so far, they say, the second most successful film. And yet, it was — it got kind of weird reviews from the critics. Adam, what was your initial reaction to that?

ADAM MCKAY, DIRECTOR AND CO-WRITER, “DON’T LOOK UP”: Yes, you know, I think it’s all very healthy. I think, you know, the response from the public at large from the hundreds of millions of people that saw it was overwhelmingly positive. But I also understand that we’re living in very difficult confusing times. Right now we’re in a hinge point in human history, where we are as an empirical fact destroying the livable climate at an increasing rate and it’s happening much faster than we thought it would. So the idea of doing a movie that’s about how we’ve kind of gaslit each other for profit under the guise as Meryl said of everything’s fine. Look at these advertisements. Everything’s normal. The idea that we would do a movie that’s an absurd comedy, but also a drama, and that would draw out split responses. You know, it didn’t surprise me at all. And in fact, I think it’s healthy to feel that kind of response.