Leonardo DiCaprio: ‘Don’t Look Up’ Comet Theme Shows Climate Crisis Is An Emergency
Leonardo DiCaprio’s enduring passion for climate change, which even brought him to NASA a few years ago, is now on screen in a new movie.
The Oscar-winning actor (“The Revenant,” “Inception”) reprises the lead role of the cast of “Don’t Look Up” (Netflix, December 10), a dark satire about the one death comet towards Earth. Director Adam McKay (“The Big Short”) has said that the comet is meant to evoke the way in which the global warming crisis is being politicized by anyone given the opportunity to do something about it.
DiCaprio campaigned for climate protection including producing several films (such as “Before the Flood”). It also brought him to the recent United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP26) in novemberand NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in 2016 .
In the new film, DiCaprio plays astrophysicist Randall Mindy, mentor and colleague of comet discoverer and PhD. candidate Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence, “X-Men: Apocalypse,” “The Hunger Games.”) As the film shows, Dibiasky and Mindy must battle everyone from the US president to the military to hear their message.
“I’m grateful to play a character based solely on so many people I’ve met from the scientific community, especially climate scientists,” DiCaprio said during a press conference that was broadcast live on Sunday. (December 4th)
Related: The Greatest Comet Encounters of All Time
“They’re trying to communicate the urgency of this issue and it feels like they’re on the last page of the newspaper,” continued DiCaprio, adding that he loved the personalities of the two characters: his efforts. to run the system, against Lawrence’s “Greta Thunberg” type of character.
While the film was conceived before the pandemic hit in March 2020, DiCaprio added in the larger message of how politicized science carries more weight in the new environment. “COVID succeeds, and there’s a whole new scientific debate going on there, and this is just such an important film to engage with at this particular moment,” he said.
But the film’s challenge, according to McKay, was to find a way to convey the urgency of climate change while still allowing people to laugh, as he felt the comedy could help unify political views. different that the audience can bring into the theater.
“You can feel urgent, and you can feel sad, and you can feel lost, and at the same time have a sense of humor, and that’s really the intention of this movie,” he said. in the same press conference.
“After the five to ten frenzied years we’ve all gone through across the planet, [my feeling] That’s God, wouldn’t it be fun to laugh at some of this? And feel other sensations? So that’s an approach, because I think we’re going to have an apocalypse. “
While satirizing climate change, with the help of University of Arizona astronomer Amy Mainzer, the film also attempts to portray the science of comets at least in a somewhat realistic format, along with scientists do this work.
Lawrence portrays a Dr. candidate appeared (at first) to have a breakthrough in research after the discovery of the comet, as finding a whole new world would be a boon in completing the lengthy research work to get a degree. But as it quickly became clear that her discovery was a disaster in the making, her character’s feelings about the comet changed.
“I think maybe there’s been an evolution” in the way Dibiasky thinks of his name, Lawrence told the panel. “I think at first she was very, very proud of this. And then I’m sure the resentment started to build up as people started to fear Comet Dibiasky.”
While the film deals with what it means to have a deadly comet conjunct a person, Mainzer said during the discussion that this is a purely fictional scenario. “Fortunately, in real life with asteroids [and comets], we won’t name something truly dangerous after a living person. That is not allowed. “
Almost every type of stakeholder in science is skewed, so alongside scientists have come up with satirical and negative depictions of how the media and politicians tend to oppose deal with “bad news” and disseminate it to the public.
U.S. President Janie Orlean (Meryl Streep, “The Devil Wears Prada”) at first rejected the astronomers, saying she wanted the White House to examine their work using what she perceived to be satellites. more prestigious institution where Mindy teaches (University of Michigan is, in real life, an explicitly cited astronomical institution.)
“It was fun to pair this character with just being a pure Id, just what she coveted and about amassing power, money, more power and more money and that’s pretty much it. And beautiful hair and nails,” Streep said.
“There’s no co-worker feeling and that’s, unfortunately, the price to pay of what being a public servant is now,” she added. “You really have to make big sacrifices. Your family makes sacrifices and you have to be willing to do that. It’s amazing how we always have good people to do it. But we need them right now.”
An early scene in the film shows Orlean and her son Jason – who is also the White House chief of staff – completely disbanding the astronomers before examining their work. This is despite the warm support of NASA’s real-life scenario Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO) assesses potential threats.
Clayton “Teddy” Oglethorpe (Rob Morgan, “Daredevil”) is the PDCO senior representative in the film, sitting in the room during this White House debate. This context, he says, is profound given recent high-profile discussions about climate science in politics. Orléans is “rejecting facts and science,” he said.
He continued, “That, to me, is very true because of what is happening, especially at this time in the country and where we are with the pandemic: everything is being phased out and everything is being removed. who says anything that contradicts the truth.”
“Don’t Look Up” opens in theaters on Friday (December 10) and will be released on Netflix’s streaming platform on December 24.
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