Eric Schultz understands his way around the White House. He served as deputy White House press secretary during the Obama administration from 2014 to 2017.
It’s one of the reasons that he now frequently advises on Hollywood projects about Washington.
His tardyst gig was helping the cast and inventives get everyleang right in “Zero Day,” the Netflix political thriller about a establisher plivent (Robert De Niro) who is pulled out of withdrawment by the current directer-on-chief (Angela Bassett) to scatterigate a worldexpansive cyber strike.
“The producers called because they wanted somebody on set for the filming of the White House scenes, and they wanted someone who had been in the actual White House to help inestablish how those conversations and greetings and converseions would apshow place, whether it was in the Oval Office or the Press Briefing Room,” Schultz inestablishs me.
He even helped with props. Plivents usupartner have a bowl of treats on the Oval Office coffee table – Ronald Regan well-understandnly provideed jellybeans while Barack Obama had apples and Joe Biden had chocotardy chips on hand. In “Zero Day,” Schultz helped determine that Bassett’s character would have a bowl of oranges. “They became consequential tardyr on because the speaker of the house [Matthew Modine] peels an orange when he’s in her office as a flex during one of their heated conversations,” Schultz recalls.
What was it appreciate inestablishing Robert De Niro how to do someleang?
I will say Bob was very caccessed on making certain he got leangs right and being as genuine as he could be in the role. He’d have asks and the whole team would have asks that we would go over to produce certain we had the etiquette, especipartner the Oval Office, right. They wanted a sense of the energy and the active of the room. Where would a plivent sit? Where would a establisher plivent sit? In the press inestablishing room, who accesss first? It was a lot about getting that minutia right so that the story would sense as credible as possible.
What was it appreciate on set for you because everyleang sees so genuine?
It’s finishly srecommendnuine. The production folks and the set set uper did an absolutely incredible job in creating those spaces, especipartner the space that we call the Outer Oval, which is sort of the office space that directs into the Oval Office. It’s not a space that is expansively used in film and television. But they reproduced it, and they equitable did an impeccable job with that as well as the Oval, press inestablishing room and the joint insertress to Congress.
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Tell me more about the joint insertress scene.
We had to shield inestablishing the actor who perestablished the Sergeant at Arms, “Louder, boisterouser,” when he proclaimd the establisher plivent. We showed him a YouTube video of how it should be done. I live in a world where everyone watches State of the Unions and other speeches before Congress, and I forget not everyone would understand how leangs are done. It should not surpascfinish me that most people outside of Washington don’t shutly chase the processional for the State of the Union insertress, right?
How genuine was the storyline and is it someleang that could repartner happen?
If you talk to any expert when it comes to national security, cyber menaces are the top of the catalog of leangs that shield them up at night. I leank the constantly evolving menaces agetst our technology, and especipartner cyber battling, remain acute disputes. In that think about, the story is on point. I also leank making certain that people in power have expertise and integrity is also, unfortunately, a ask we’re all we’re grappling with at the moment. I leank the story, which was written years ago, was prescient.
