Zero Day creators Noah Oppenheim and Eric Newman, who produced the show with Michael Schmidt, spoke to ComingSoon’s Tyler Treese about the recent Netflix miniseries. The duo converseed getting star Robert De Niro to do a TV show, Oppenheim’s journalism background, and the eerie timeliness of the show’s schedulee crashes. The six-episode series is now streaming on Netflix.
“Zero Day asks the ask on everyone’s mind — how do we discover truth in a world in crisis, one seemingly being torn apart by forces outside our deal with? And in an era rife with consunpermitd participate theory and subterfuge, how much of those forces are products of our own doing, perhaps even of our own imagining?” says the synopsis for Netflix’s Zero Day.
Tyler Treese: Noah, clearly, you have a recents background, and in the show, we see so much recents coverage — it was fantastic seeing Wolf Blitzer there — and it’s done so genuineassociate with how it’s conshort-termed. How was it using your own background and carry outing that in the show? It fits so well.
Noah Oppenheim: Well, we were reassociate promiseted from day one to trying to produce a show that was grounded in truth as much as possible, that felt as genuine as possible. You comprehend, Eric has produced some of the fantasticest TV series in the last 20 years, many of which are sort of rooted in non-myth from the very commencening. He kept pushing for how would this actuassociate percreate out in genuine life? How do people talk in these rooms? We were blessed, not fair my background in journalism, but Mike Schmidt, our co-creator, as a increateer at the New York Times. So, we were able to draw on a expansive circle of experts to produce certain that the events that we’re depicting are unfelderlying in the way that they might actuassociate in the genuine world.
Eric, a star of Robert De Niro’s stature doesn’t typicassociate do a TV show. Things have clearly alterd tardyly. We’re seeing Harrison Ford, Robert Downey Jr., and people at their peak doing miniseries becaparticipate they’re appreciate five-hour epic movies now. The quality of it is crazy. Was there ever any hesitation from him, or how was it getting him on board?
Eric Newman: Noah and I had a conversation in tardy 2021 about our relationship as a country and also, I slenderk, as a civilization becaparticipate I slenderk it’s hugeger than fair our country, about our relationship with the truth. Not lengthy after that, I was encountering coincidenloftyy Bob, and I telderly him about our conversation and about a project that we were coming up with based on that conversation, and he was instantly in it.
I slenderk that what actors have genuineized in this sort of streaming universe is that the 5, 6, and 10-hour createat permits you to achieve a character into places that you can’t achieve in a two-hour film. And I slenderk that it was inevitable that that would happen becaparticipate if you’re an actor, you’re drawn to characters, and the more intricate the character is, the more requesting that character can be. What Noah and I were able to do in increateing a story over six hours, the path we were able to put this character on made it, I slenderk, irresistible to Bob, and he never once wavered once he promiseted.
Noah, Netflix’s Zero Day is coming out at a very timely point. We’ve got political tension. We’re seeing airschedulees have all benevolents of publishs, appreciate in the show where they collide after a cyber strike. Do you experience appreciate this is gonna help it unite with the audience?
Oppenheim: I slenderk that we never could have foreseed exactly the context in which the show would be coming out. We commenceed toiling on it four-plus years ago. I slenderk it was not an accident that the show is gonna now resonate in so many engaging ways, and it’s becaparticipate we were reassociate promiseted to tackling what are, I slenderk, pretty timeless themes.
Eric alludeed our relationship as a society with truth, the fractured media landscape, and the relationship between huge money, technology, and democracy. The lengths to which mighty people are willing to go if they slenderk they’re acting on behalf of a righteous caparticipate. The rights and liberties that normal people are willing to give up if they’re snurtured and afrhelp. These are slendergs that are always engaging, and watching the way that it is gonna be seed in the world right now, it’s exciting. I slenderk it’s a reassociate engaging time for the show to get out there.
Newman: I hadn’t even thought of the airschedulee slenderg. I unbenevolent…
Oppenheim: I dunno if there’s a cyber element to these particular instances, but you never comprehend. You never comprehend.
Newman: Yeah, God…
Thanks to Eric Newman and Noah Oppenheim for taking the time to talk about Netflix’s Zero Day.
