Why I’m writing about rich people again

Jesse Armstrong, one of many UK’s most profitable screenwriters, just isn’t one to relaxation on his laurels.

Sizzling off the again of his hit present Succession, which adopted the twists and turns within the lives of media mogul Logan Roy, performed by Brian Cox, and his 4 kids, Armstrong is again along with his first feature-length movie, Mountainhead.

It is a satire movie a few group of 4 tech billionaire pals who go away to a mountain resort for the weekend however discover themselves and their social media corporations beneath scrutiny as social unrest spreads throughout the globe.

Talking on the Hay Competition, Armstrong says: “People start by saying, ‘Why are you doing these rich people again? And it’s a fair question. They’re tech billionaires. Succession was about a big media family. And I think it’s because I’m interested in power, I don’t think it’s about just wealth.

“Succession was very clearly about why is the world like it’s, who has energy?”

HBO’s Mountainhead, starring Steve Carrell and Ramy Youssef, was made very quickly.

“We did it at nice pace. I pitched it in December and wrote it in January… carried on re-writing it by means of pre-production after which shot it in 22 days, then edited it.

“We only finished (editing) about a week ago and it’s on TV this weekend!”

Armstrong, 54, wished to do a fast turnaround on the movie to attempt to seize the sensation and tempo of technological developments and society’s worry about maintaining.

“The anxieties that we have about technology, especially AI, feel very present and move quite fast. And I wanted to try and write it in the same mood as you might be when you’re watching it, so I was keen to do it quickly,” he says.

“Another attraction for me was that I’ve never directed anything before and it made me feel less anxious to run at it and do it really, really quickly.”

Armstrong, who reduce his enamel in kids’s TV earlier than writing for exhibits comparable to The Thick of It and happening to co-create collection like Peep Present and Contemporary Meat, stated the inspiration for Mountainhead got here from listening to podcasts.

“I wrote a book review about Sam-Bankman-Fried, the crypto fraudster, and then I read more and more about tech, and I started listening to podcasts of senior tech figures, from Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg and Sam Altman, but also the mid-level people and even lower level – it’s an ecosphere.

“I could not cease serious about the voice of those individuals. I do love getting the vocabulary proper. For me, that opens the door, as soon as I can hear them speaking. And because it looks as if the AI corporations are scraping a lot of our onerous work to coach their fashions, I believed I might scrape them again [using their podcasts]!”

Armstrong told the Hay audience that while he knew his job was to engage viewers, writing the film “was a means of expressing a load of emotions about that world and about these males – they’re virtually all males in that world – and it is cathartic”.

His shows are known for their dark humour and Armstrong says if he had to write his job description in his passport application, he would put down “comedy author”, adding that he doesn’t think of himself as a storyteller.

“I am attempting to make a narrative partaking that can most likely contain individuals laughing. And the bit that I discover most difficult is discovering a narrative as a result of individuals keep in mind jokes, however you simply will not make it by means of that half hour or hour until that story is is compelling sufficient to make an viewers observe alongside.”

Many writers and showrunners end up directing episodes of the series that they have created but Armstrong says he couldn’t do that on Succession, which won multiple awards including 14 primetime Emmys.

“I at all times felt just like the individuals who did it had been so good at it that it was moderately impolite of me to recommend I may simply are available and do it simply as nicely.”

Armstrong doesn’t appear to be your stereotypical confident showrunner, coming across as quite shy and humble, despite his success.

“Typically very artistic individuals have an actual ‘screw you’ perspective to authority, and I haven’t got that. Perhaps I am a bit extra fearful, a bit extra amenable. I like everybody to be joyful. I wish to to provide individuals what they need in fairly a good and humane means.

“I don’t have a confrontational attitude to people I work with, unless someone’s a jerk – I hope I can stand up for myself and the work.”

Mountainhead is launched on HBO and Max on 31 Might