- Brad Pitt is on his way.
Hang out.
Take deep breathes.
He's coming.
Put up with us briefly.
And there's an amazing composer, Hildur Guðnadóttir,
who just won for "Joker"
and who did the music for "Chernobyl."
so please, you know--
- Ask her some "Chernobyl"-- - Ask her some
"Chernobyl" questions. - Yep.
(laughter)
Then Brad Pitt.
- So hey, congratulations.
The question is, could any of you guys can recall
the day when Chernobyl happened in real life?
- Oh, yeah, for sure.
I think we probably all could.
I was 15...
and the, in the United States the Challenger Disaster
had happened just about three months earlier.
And so, I think we were all in a state of kind of,
national mourning and we had this interesting perspective on
what it meant to suffer a national tragedy.
This was in the middle of the Cold War.
So, I wonder, if that hadn't happened if we would have
viewed Chernobyl the same way but for me, seeing that
just three months later something like a disaster
like we had suffered and it turned out much, much worse
happened in the Soviet Union, I think we all felt
a little bit of a kinship like, "Huh, we were the two big
heavy weights and here we are kind of bloodied
and on our knees."
It's humbling and it's instructive that
regardless of what our governments do and what they say,
we're all just people.
- That's it. - That's it, we're good.
- She's gotta...
- Arm broken. - Hey!
- She's gotta... Ope, yes?
- Congratulations again, you guys deserve every award
that you pick up and Hildur also is a good story,
I promise I will ask her some questions.
I have a slightly off topic for Carolyn.
Carolyn you have been associated with HBO for a long time
as an executive and now as a producer of little shows
like Game of Thrones and Chernobyl.
What, this is a big time of transition for HBO right now,
what do you think, as you're a little bit out--
you're in the family but a little bit arm's length,
what do you think of everything that's going on for HBO and
HBO Max right now?
- Oh, that's a big question.
I think it is a huge time of transition,
I think HBO has always had a very distinctive brand
and my fervent hope is that they are able to
hang on to that brand through all the change 'cause
I think it does stand for something.
- My question, you thanked these communities that helped you
in the filimg, did it surprise you because even though you
show some heroics, you also show
some doubt, some trying to hide.
How did the people express themselves about these happenings
and again were you surprised that they were willing to help
you, that they wanted to tell the story?
For anybody.
- Go Craig. - Go on.
- They were incredibly helpful,
they I think responded to the fact that
we were trying to tell a story from their point of view.
And we were obsessive about being accurate.
To us that is how you show respect to a culture,
by getting it right.
That was something that we were working on together
from research and the script and casting and costume
and everything.
But they suffered from this, there is nothing ideological
about radiation, it doesn't care.
And they all suffered from it and they all had a heartfelt
desire to see it reflected well
and to see Ukrainians and Belarusians and Russians
and Soviet Citizens portrayed as they were,
which was heroic.
The government, no.
But the people, yes.
- Did you really, from the actors,
did you meet local people,
did you meet local people who told their stories?
- Yeah, we met some people in Lithuania
who had experienced it or has family had been part of it
and afterwards since then we've met people
whose parents were some of the liquidators,
parents had worked in,
we met somebody just the other day who grew up in Pripyat
and left when he was sick.
So we actually run into people all the time
and they're all tremendously appreciative
of the effort that the show had made to be as authentic
as it possibly could and show what the result
and effect was on their lives.
(woosh)