Ravounous fans risking their lives for radioactive tchotchkes and eerily similar government cover
ups. Check your radiation levels, because this is the untold truth of HBO's "Chernobyl".
Despite the fact that the show's producers strived for HBO's "Chernobyl" to be as
historically and culturally accurate as they could possibly make it, it's very common for
filmmakers and showrunners to take liberties with the truth for the sake of the narrative, and this
production was no exception. To his credit, Craig Mazin, the creator and sole writer of the series,
felt the need to be forthcoming about the liberties taken with the facts of the real events
depicted — after all, a major theme of the show focuses on how costly certain lies ended up being.
"The research I did for this production was horrible. Possibly the most gruesome
way to die is by severe radiation poisoning."
In an effort to help bridge the gap between Hollywood and reality, Mazin created "The
Chernobyl Podcast," airing concurrently with the show, where he and co-host Peter Sagal of NPR's
"Wait Wait ... Don't Tell Me" discussed which elements of "Chernobyl" were based in reality
and what had been changed for the storyline. Mazin is no stranger to the world of podcasts;
since 2011, he's co-hosted the screenwriting series "Scriptnotes" with fellow screenwriter
John August. The "Scriptnotes" podcast is devoted to everything that would
interest any screenwriter, whether they're a novice or a professional.
A month after the series finale, "The Chernobyl Podcast" produced
a bonus episode with actor Jared Harris, who talked about his experience portraying
Valery Legasov and the response the show received throughout the world.
"Chernobyl" series creator Craig Mazin visited the abandoned Chernobyl town in
Pripyat as part of his research for the acclaimed miniseries. He did this to get
a sense of the size of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which helped him understand how
the workers in the control room would have responded to the explosion in reactor number
4. Mazin described his experience as something of a religious experience even though he himself
is not very religious. In the month after the show premiered, Reuters reported that
tourism companies reported a 40% rise in bookings to the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.
The Ukrainian Government, led by President Volodymyr Zelensky,
subsequently announced that Chernobyl would become
an official tourist site. After a visit to the exclusion zone, Zelensky said:
"We must give this territory of Ukraine a new life […] until now,
Chernobyl was a negative part of Ukraine's brand. It's time to change it."
Even though the government's tourism campaign may have helped Ukraine's economy, officials
and scientific experts have expressed their doubts about the growing number of visitors pouring into
the abandoned city. As it remains among the most radiologically contaminated locations on Earth
more than three decades after the accident. To fuel the skepticism, according to The Washington
Post, there have been reports of bad behavior on behalf of the tourists. Particularly because
they would ignore health and safety protocols by entering dangerous spots to take selfies,
rummaging through abandoned buildings, and stealing objects left behind as souvenirs.
Jared Harris has repeatedly admitted that three-time Academy Award winner
Daniel Day-Lewis was apparently the first choice to portray Soviet nuclear scientist
Valery Legasov in HBO's "Chernobyl." Referring to Day-Lewis' announcement
that he was retiring from acting in 2017 after finishing production on Paul Thomas
Anderson's movie "Phantom Thread." Harris told The Guardian -
"He was supposed to do the part in Chernobyl. Thank God he retired!"
It wouldn't be the first time that Day-Lewis was the first choice for a role that eventually went
to Harris. Harris revealed that Day-Lewis was also initially offered the role of arch-nemesis
Professor Moriarty in Guy Ritchie's "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows," which was rumored
to be circling around Sean Penn and Brad Pitt before Harris was hired a week before the film
started shooting. Harris has quipped about this often, going on to say -
"Everything gets offered to him first. Everything!"
Day-Lewis and Harris previously collaborated on Steven Spielberg's acclaimed 2012 biographical
drama "Lincoln," in which Day-Lewis portrayed the titular historical United States president
and Harris portrayed Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant. Day-Lewis even made
it into Harris' acceptance speech for his BAFTA win as Best Leading Actor for
"Chernobyl," where Harris playfully jabed at Day-Lewis with the following remark.
"Don't stay away too long, you know, I miss seeing you up there."
In the show, Ulana Khomyuk [oo-LAN-uh KOM-yuk] is a nuclear physicist who joins Valery Legasov
and Boris Shcherbina [share-BEE-nuh] in their investigation into the Chernobyl
disaster after detecting the radiation in Belarus [beh-luh-ROOS], nearly 250 miles
from the site of the nuclear disaster. In the show's penultimate episode,
Ulana steps in as the voice of reason and accountability when Legasov must decide
between disclosing the truth about the Soviet Union's neglect with the RBMK reactors that
caused the Chernobyl accident or playing it safe and remaining on good terms with the government.
Unlike Legasov and Shcherbina, who played a significant role in mitigating the disaster
in real life, the character of Ulana Khomyuk isn't based on any specific real-life figure;
she's a composite character made to mirror the real-world women who were a vital part
of the medical and scientific scene in the Soviet Union. Series creator Craig Mazin noted in "The
Chernobyl Podcast" that although the Soviet Union had few women in political and governmental roles,
in the fields of science and medicine, the Soviets were actually very progressive in that regard.
"I'm a nuclear physicist. Before you were Deputy Secretary, you worked in a shoe factory."
Viewers of "Chernobyl" will notice that even though the show takes place in Soviet Ukraine,
none of the characters speak Ukrainian or Russian. Or even English with a Russian accent,
as they would in most English-language movies and TV shows set in a non-English
speaking region. While it may seem like an oversight, the dialects and
accents of the show's characters were a conscious decision for the producers.
The director of "Chernobyl," Johan Renck, revealed in BAFTA's "The Making of
Chernobyl" that there were discussions about producing the show in Russian and Ukrainian,
but that idea was ruled out for the global production. Series creator Craig Mazin explained
on the show's companion podcast that Russian accents in English media tended to appear,
quote, "comical", which would obviously impair the serious tone of the disaster-tragedy show.
The producers considered having actors do vague Eastern European accents that weren't
as strong as full-blown Russian accents but would be noticeable. However, they found that
actors would focus on the accents rather than being true to the emotions of their characters,
after which the producers decided to scrap the idea completely. According to Cosmopolitan,
they decided to keep the show's casting within the confines of Europe by avoiding
casting American actors. As they realized that much like the Russian accents,
American actors would be too distracting for the viewers to focus on the drama of the show.
When a TV show is as popular as "Chernobyl" was, network executives often find it tempting
to fast-track the release of a second season and plan a full franchise. HBO's "Chernobyl," however,
was always planned to be a limited series and a one-time television event. The story
was written to conclude in five episodes, as series creator Craig Mazin made clear
in interviews promoting the show and on the show's official podcast.
However, when asked by Decider about the scope for a second season, Mazin pointed out the
possibility of focusing on another crisis similar to Chernobyl. Such as the Bhopal gas disaster or
the Fukushima nuclear disaster. These stories, which share a common theme of fatal, tragic
incidents caused and covered up as a result of human ignorance and arrogance, would undoubtedly
be formidable successors to the story of Chernobyl and make for an intriguing anthology series.
For those who are curious, the Bhopal gas disaster was an industrial accident that occurred in 1984
when a highly deadly gas spilled from a pesticide facility in Bhopal, India, and spread to nearby
towns. According to The Atlantic, over 500,000 people were exposed to the gas,
making this chemical disaster one of the worst in world history. The 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster
was the result of a nuclear accident at a power station in Okuma, Japan, which was brought on
by the worst earthquake ever registered in that country. According to the International Business
Times, the disaster was given a level seven classification on the International Nuclear
Event Scale, making it the only other event to get such a designation other than Chernobyl.
HBO's "Chernobyl" received positive reviews from Russian audiences and
critics. Citing that the show did a better job of portraying the Chernobyl disaster and
its Soviet setting than any Russian film or television program. However,
the praise didn't prevent accusations from state-run television and Russian tabloids. They
claimed that the show had distorted the truth by portraying Soviet-era leaders in a negative light.
"In terms of radiation, plant director Bryukhanov reports
no more than 3.6 roentgen. I'm told it's the equivalent of a chest x-ray."
It was reported that, as a response to the HBO show, Russian NTV, which is known to be
pro-Kremlin, was set to air its own retelling of the Chernobyl disaster. The show centers on
a Russian counterintelligence agent assigned to track a CIA operative
who's been dispatched to Pripyat to gather intelligence on the Chernobyl power plant.
In an interview with the Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda,
the director of NTV's "Chernobyl," Alexey Muradov,
cited the theory that Americans had infiltrated the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Going on
to assert that this claim had never been denied by historians. According to the BBC,
an apparent trailer for the NTV show was uploaded to YouTube, but was later removed after backlash.
Amidst the political and bureaucratic drama taking place throughout the show,
Lyudmila Ignatenko's storyline in "Chernobyl" provides a civilian perspective on the disaster.
As well as its consequences on innocent Soviet citizens who are unaware of the true dangers of
the radiation stemming from the explosion. Much like most of the show's characters,
Lyudmila and her husband Vasily Ignatenko were real people; as series creator Craig Mazin
revealed on the show's companion podcast. Lyudmila's story was one among many of the
civilian accounts and testimonies of the disaster featured in the book "Voices From Chernobyl."
In an interview with BBC Russia following the success of the show,
the real-life Lyudmila broke her silence and claimed that she was never approached
for permission by the show's producers to use her name or her story. She revealed that the
release of HBO's "Chernobyl" resulted in journalists invading her privacy to get an
interview with her. She also faced accusations from several people saying that she had harmed
her then unborn child. Referring to the scenes in the show when the pregnant Lyudmila had close
contact with her radioactively infected husband despite warnings from doctors.
HBO and Sky refuted her allegations, saying that Ignatenko and the production crew had
multiple discussions and that she had been given the opportunity to offer feedback
during the writing process. They added that Lyudmila never indicated during the
process that she did not want her and her husband's story to be featured on the show.
According to The New York Times, at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic,
Chinese citizens noticed the similarities between the Soviet response to the Chernobyl disaster and
the Chinese government's initial handling of the coronavirus outbreak. In particular,
they noted the communist governments' incompetence when handling the crises,
and the suppression of information surrounding them.
"No one leaves. And cut the phone lines. Contain the spread of misinformation."
In both cases, the dangers were seemingly invisible — radioactive contamination and
an airborne respiratory virus. In the case of Chernobyl, it was only after countries neighboring
the Soviet Union began detecting radiation that Soviet leadership admitted there was a problem.
Similarly, Chinese authorities only reported the first cases of the coronavirus and its spread
outside of Wuhan days after Thailand and Japan reported cases of the infection. According to
Quartz, the Chinese government deleted articles and comments about the virus. And people were
detained for, quote, "spreading rumors" after posting about the virus on social media.
As a result, people took to the "Chernobyl" page on Chinese film review website Douban
to channel their frustrations over their government's handling of the virus. Users
posted quotes from the show and pointed out the parallels between the show's story and current
events. The "Chernobyl" page on Douban eventually amassed over 200,000 ratings.