- It's a story about an ecological disaster
and the fact that it was made worse
because they ignored the facts.
They suppressed an inconvenient truth
for a more favorable political reality.
(charming piano music)
- Jared Harris, I have a question.
You've had this incredible career,
and one could say it's in your DNA.
Both your parents were actors.
- It is one of my more brilliant ideas.
- [Sally] So, when did you first realize
that you wanted to make this your profession
and this was gonna be it for you?
- I'm still deciding. (laughs)
My family didn't think this was what I was gonna do.
And I was the middle child,
so you're always fighting your corners, the middle child,
you kinda create space for yourself.
So, I was always arguing
and I think they thought I would be a lawyer.
- So, you never had an 'aha' moment?
Like, you were on stage one time
and you thought, I feel alive.
My fire's burning and this is it.
- I went to Duke University and got into it there,
and I enjoyed the nerves.
I enjoyed the fear and being out in front of the audience,
and not knowing what was gonna happen,
and how they were gonna respond.
- Is nerve something that still affect you today, or?
- Yeah, sure.
First day before you start a job you can't sleep.
It's part of the fun of it, not knowing.
And you can live these things out,
imagine it in your mind, but you don't know
if they're gonna work 'til you actually try and do it.
It's exciting and, you know, sometimes it stinks.
(chuckles)
Sometimes you stink. You don't do a good job.
- Was there a performance, you're like,
"Ah, shit, I didn't get the mark there"?
- Yes, the trouble is, and I, you look at it,
it takes me a decade to look at the stuff that I've done
before I'm happy about it.
I mean, there's some I haven't seen.
(laughs)
- Have you watched Chernobyl in full yet?
- Of course I have!
- When the truth offends me, we lie and lie
until we can no longer remember it is even there,
but it is still there.
- What was your reaction when you first read the script?
Did it come alive to you almost immediately?
- They had me at HBO, you know?
But then I read it, and wow, I just,
for 20 pages in, you know, it's just gripping.
I was alive at the time living in Europe,
so I knew about what had happened,
but I didn't understand what had happened.
- And with every true story,
there's kind of that added pressure
and responsibility, if you will, to get it right.
So, how much research did you do
before you took on this role?
- He had been successfully scrubbed from the story though,
and it was quite hard
to find specific information about him,
and a lot of the stuff that I found
ended up not being massively useful,
because he had a swagger about him,
and he had a confidence about him,
and it wasn't useful to occupy that space,
because that's what Stalin was gonna do,
that's what his character did,
and I had to occupy different space
for that relationship to work.
- I'm pleased to report
that the situation in Chernobyl is stable.
In terms of radiation,
I'm told this is the equivalent of a chest x-ray.
- No, Chernobyl is on fire!
- And how did you connect to him?
Are you a type of actor that needs to find something
in that person that is in you also?
Or do you have to like them?
Like, what's your process of connecting?
- The thing that connected me specifically to this character
was the idea that he was a reluctant hero,
and that he wasn't brave in that sense.
Traditionally, what you see with the heroes
is they, they run into the burning building and they,
that's what the first responders do actually,
that you seen that first episode.
He's not that.
That interested me, in a way, because you know,
I think we all have, we don't know
how we're gonna react when that moment comes.
Are we gonna run or are we gonna fight?
- Why do you think the audiences today
are connecting with the story so much?
- It's a story about an ecological disaster,
and the fact that it was made worse
because people ignored the scientists.
They ignored the facts, they ignored the truth.
They suppressed an inconvenient truth
for a more favorable political reality.
It isn't difficult just to sort of look past the screen
and see how it applies to what's happening now.
I mean, hat whole idea of the,
the sort of the toxic effect of lies
and what happens if you suppress the truth.
We can deny what's happening about the planet
as much as we want, but it's gonna do what it's gonna do.
- So, is one of the lessons you want people to learn,
even governments and lawmakers,
is to listen to what's going on
in the planet and the environment right now?
- Gonna right back to what Goebbels put forward,
which was that lie, lie big and just keep repeating it,
and then people will eventually start to believe the lie.
And that's how you get to,
you get people to believe what you want them to believe
and ignore the truth.
- And you have had just the most wonderful,
glorious, versatile career, but looking back,
what kind of makes you the most proud?
- To be still working. (laughs)
I think I remember words by
the first acting teacher and directors,
his name was Richard Ormond, and his speech to us
before the first night we did the play was,
"At some point, the job you're doing
"is the last job you're gonna do.
"It's the last play you're gonna do,
"or it's gonna be on camera
"and be the last film you're gonna do.
"You never know when that's gonna be, so enjoy it."
(upbeat music)