In the opening minutes of the Netflix limited series, which premieres Feb. 20, a cyberattack shuts down America’s entire grid for one minute (phones, computers, the works) killing thousands and wreaking havoc nationwide.
To find the culprit and prevent another attack, the president (Angela Bassett) appoints beloved former president George Mullen (Robert De Niro) to head a far-reaching, supercharged investigation. He reluctantly accepts, but soon begins taking concerning advantage of his virtually unlimited powers.
The media, spearheaded by an aggressive TV show host named Evan Green (Dan Stevens) accuses Mullen of overreach with such vitriol it attracts Mullen’s ire; Green’s accusations aren’t all wrong, but they are delivered with poisonous intent: to destroy, not elucidate. (Stevens calls Green a composite of numerous loudmouths, but his look, along with the hatemongering, pompousness, and disingenuousness, evokes Tucker Carlson.)
This paranoid thriller raises fears not only of a cyberattack but of irresponsible media figures unable or unwilling to construct a narrative that stays focused on the facts, and of a government unable to properly respond because it’s so riddled by ambitions, personal agendas, and secrets.
Even as the country reels, loyalty and honesty are in short supply; the main characters are enmeshed in illicit love affairs, beset by drug problems, and sidetracked by backroom deals to leverage power, earn money, or gain revenge.
“The parallels between our show and reality are chilling, to say the least,” says Lizzy Caplan, who plays Mullen’s daughter, Alex, a congresswoman determined to create her own legacy.
The show has a deep cast featuring Jesse Plemons, Bassett, Caplan, Stevens, Joan Allen, Matthew Modine, and Connie Britton, each playing a character with their own murky motives. But the centerpiece is De Niro, trying his hand at US television for the first time. Mullen has plenty of secrets, most notably the fact that he is battling a descent into dementia.
“We’re exploring the schism between the public face that politicians and others put forward and who they are behind closed doors,” Oppenheim says. “There’s always a lot more going on beneath the surface.”
Newman notes that the show is consciously nonpartisan, without a Trumpian figure, to show that “no one has a monopoly on dishonesty” and that both parties bear some responsibility for the fact that “the mechanism by which we determine truth from fiction is severely damaged, perhaps irreparably.”
Modine, who plays the speaker of the House, says the show represents how we’re living in a world of misinformation and disinformation “way beyond what George Orwell envisioned.”
Every character is “playing a shell game,” he says, raising the question, “Are we even capable today of telling the truth and doing what’s right rather than doing something that protects the mythology of America?”
Connie Britton, who plays Mullen’s former chief of staff, agrees, saying the series lays bare a society where “the foundations of the truth have just been completely dismantled by the people who are being asked to lead us,” a problem exacerbated by the technology that dominates our life. The characters in “Zero Day” have a difficult time determining what’s true, which makes wise decision-making nearly impossible.
Newman had dinner with De Niro right after he and Oppenheim concocted the idea, and the star was immediately all in. They wrote the script “for him and with him,” with the icon signing on as executive producer and taking a hands-on approach.
His participation was crucial for several reasons, Newman says, starting with De Niro’s ability as an actor to pivot from sympathetic to dangerous. “When he becomes unhinged, there’s no one who does that better than Robert De Niro.”
Beyond his screen persona, De Niro “has a social conscience and brings gravitas and integrity,” Newman says, and that immediately has viewers trusting and rooting for Mullen even if they shouldn’t necessarily do so.
That gravitas can be seen early on when the camera scans past photos of De Niro with New York mayor Mike Bloomberg and then with Nelson Mandela. (Those aren’t photoshopped — they’re actual moments from De Niro’s life. “His real office is filled with pictures of him with the most extraordinary people, and it’s both an inspiring and an intimidating space to be in,” says Stevens.)
De Niro’s reputation also was a draw for the actors. “I love our scripts — everyone has a really strong story — and we created a show with commentary on the world we live in, but for this cast I think De Niro was the magnet,” admits Newman. “I imagine every actor counted how many scenes they’d have with De Niro and then said, ‘I’m in.’”
As Green, Stevens is on the receiving end of a trademark intense and intimidating De Niro moment, the kind the actor became a legend for a half-century ago. “That’s bucket list stuff,” Stevens says, adding that his character’s nervousness in a showdown with a vengeful ex-president reflects Stevens’s own in facing off against the former Travis Bickle.
Immersion in the world of “Zero Day” can be unnerving, Britton says, because the show “captures our cultural fear about how hard it is to keep up with technology and regulating it. There’s an element of unknown around cyberwarfare, and one of the scariest things in the show is how little the people in charge understand this kind of attack.”
But what’s crucial about “Zero Day,” Stevens adds, is that it captures a “three-pronged anxiety” that starts with any attack, then pivots to how the government and media handle it.
“It creates a perfect storm and creates this show’s thriller atmosphere — you have the threat, you’ve got the government reaction, and then the stoking of the reaction from the media,” he says, pointing to parallels between “Zero Day” and how badly the government and media responded to the 9/11 attacks.
“We knew who did it then and look what we did,” Newman adds, pointing to the cheerleading for unnecessary and ill-advised wars that continue reverberating decades later. “Zero Day,” by contrast, conjures an unseen enemy, which he and Oppenheim find even more frightening, given the justifiable decline of trust in media and the government.
“That’s what keeps me up at night,” Oppenheim says. “It could be any crisis, but the dysfunction in our institutions — the cynicism that has infected both sides and the paralysis that has resulted — makes it so much more challenging. If we can’t even agree on what’s happening or who’s responsible, then there’s no way we can mount a proper response.”
After shooting the series Caplan says ruefully, “my cynicism around these issues feels validated, which is the worst possible takeaway.”
But Modine at least hopes that political thrillers like this can shine a light on the problem. “People are inspired by stories, and if we see somebody who sacrifices for the greater good, it can inspire people to do what’s right,” he says. “Hopefully we can have a conversation about who we are as a nation and what we believe in.”
