I’m interested in writing about power: Succession creator Jesse Armstrong on new film Mountainhead
Succession creator Jesse Armstrong says his film Mountainhead, much like his critically-acclaimed HBO show about media mogul Logan Roy, is an exploration of power and how a group of people control the quality and quantity of information that goes out in the world.
Succession creator Jesse Armstrong opens up on writing his new film Mountainhead
In his directorial debut, currently streaming on JioHotstar, the multiple Emmy and Golden Globe-winner Armstrong once again trains his lens on the ultra rich. In the movie, four tech billionaires come together for a weekend retreat as a global crisis unfolds thanks to the deep-fake videos of a social media app owned by one of them. The real world filters through videos and images on their screens, but they are more concerned about their net worth and how the crisis can help multiply it.
Asked why he is so focused on exploring the lives of the rich in his stories, Jesse said it may be because he thinks a lot about “income distribution and how very unbalanced it is.”
“A writer doesn’t always know why they choose the subjects they do or why they’re drawn to certain areas. Maybe I’m more angry than I know (about the rich-poor divide), but I think I’m writing about power,” Jesse Armstrong responded to a question posed by a news agency during an international media roundtable.
In Succession, he said, it was the power of Logan Roy’s family and their control over the media. “In this story (Mountainhead), it’s not that they’re rich guys — although it’s important that they are rich guys and are constantly ranking themselves and thinking about their wealth — but it’s their power that’s the centre of the story. It’s their ability to change how most of the people in the world receive information and the quality and quantity of information that they’re receiving.”
In Mountainhead, the eldest of the group is Randall (Steve Carell), he is also the group’s leader. Jeff (Ramy Youssef) is the founder of an AI tech company that’s on the upswing thanks to crisis created by Venis’ (Cory Michael Smith) social media app and Hugo (Jason Schwartzman) is the owner of the mountain top villa whose name is a play on Ayn Rand’s novel Fountainhead.
Jesse Armstrong, also known for Downhill, Peep Show and In the Loop, said he did not have any particular actors in mind while writing the movie, but he knew that Office star Carell would be brilliant as Randall.
(Edited by Prattusa Mallik)
