Robert De Niro and The 'Zero Day' cast reveal how the show's hack happened (Spoilers!)

The timing of this is also, it feels so relevant right now

even though I know this is written a couple years ago. All the layers and all the fears that it sort of brings up

as far as like things to be scared of. I know Mr. Niro, you've said that real life is scarier. Yeah

This horrific attack, you're just gonna grab people off the streets without warrants

Actually, you are. I'm very interested in how the hack technically works

You guys can break it down a little bit for, for our audience. Yeah

The idea that we reveal, you know, towards the end of the investigation is that you have a person

and Monica Kidder who owns, you know, all of these technology companies and apps and that

you know, we all, you know, I every day, you every day, we get notices on our phones that say

you know, update available for an app. And I think we sort of mindlessly click, okay

And it's, you know, oftentimes it's just set to auto download. So the ability for somebody who's got, you know, tentacles into mobile

devices into desktop computers to sort of push out a piece of software very widely I think you know exists today Of the themes and sort of big fears that this show brings up which do you find the most scary or the most disconcerting

I mean, they're all pretty scary in their own way. I think, you know, perhaps the one I engaged with the most from my perspective in the show

is this idea of truth and, you know, who we listen to and, you know, whose opinions do we value

Where do we get our, where do we get our news from? essentially where do we where do we get that truth from i think increasingly we're sort of losing

our ability to to discern that and that is a real problem of our aid and i think you know that is

it's at the root of a lot of problems right now on the note of um misinformation disinformation

what is truth what are facts i really love the depiction of mullen Robert deeneer's character

literally not knowing what's happening in his brain not knowing what information is accurate

what's what's not accurate what's really happening why it's happening. To me, that made me feel viscerally

as I was watching the show, what it feels like to be in the culture as it is undergoing this complete dissemination of the truth you know Probably the whole cyber attack everything shuts down all the information

Because just going through your daily life, I'm not thinking the bank, the street light

the, you know, where all the frailties, you know, might be. And if it were all to completely collapse at the same time, how much, how just overwhelming

and daunting that would be. I've read that you've said that, you know, what's great about the job of being an actor is

the exploration of the other, trying to understand other human beings. What would you say that you learned from exploring Dreyer in these human beings

I really wanted him to have nothing else. So, like, when you see him at home, did not have a wife in the bed or kids, any evidence of

children and everything, that he's just a political animal. He's just an ambitious person who wants to be, you know, the most powerful person

He's risen to his Speaker of the House, and his next stop is the President of the United States

He's really after that positions. But what I learned along the way, like how important those values of things that we learn when we're children going to kindergarten

how important it is to say please and thank you to cooperate with one another to share These kind of simple basic principles that are so lost from the current atmosphere of this world that we share that inability to be able to listen to the other to see

yourself in the other, be more civil, that we're living in a kind of time where I'm right

you're wrong, I'm smart, you're stupid, it's just nonproductive and it's dangerous. The hack was

essentially showing people how vulnerable they are will hopefully get people to

talk again, which resonated with me a lot. I'll let to hear you talk a little bit about

Yeah, I really, really think that Alex thought she was doing the right thing. I know that she thought

that the means to get there were, it was a very extreme way to go about it, but that it was necessary

But she's young and headstrong and arrogant. And I think because the person representing

like established institutions also happens to be her father. In her mind, she thinks she knows better

She thinks the future and progress is definite. going to be more important than a steady, even hands

And she's wrong. And I think we can all kind of relate to all parts of that

I think there's a little bit of Alex and quite a few of us