Meryl Streep, Diane Lane and more stars are warning us of a future climate catastrophe
Scott Z. Burns has brought together some of Hollywood’s biggest stars for the anthology series, including Meryl Streep, Diane Lane, Kit Harrington, Tobey Maguire and Forest Whitaker (to name a few). extrapolations (on Apple TV+) on the impact of climate change.
extrapolations is a series of eight interconnected stories about how climate change has affected the lives of people around the world over various decades into the future.
Harrington’s character, Nick Bilton, is particularly consistent throughout the story as the CEO of a company called Alpha, which appears to control everything to do with farming and water supply holograms. Martha (Lane) works for Alpha and as time goes on she gets more responsibility in the company.
“It was a thrill for me,” Lane said Yahoo Canada about being part of the series. “Scott Burns is the perfect man for the job, combining so much humanity with so much science, because the intersection of both is his wheelhouse.”
“I felt very confident saying yes to him and was lucky to have the offer.”
Michael Gandolfini is Rowan Chopin, whose father, played by Edward Norton, is friends with Martha. Rowan and his father have conflicting views on how they are trying to curb the effects of climate change.
“He has a really understandable and really big struggle, which is not wanting to lose your relationship with your father or your parents … but having to go out and do … what needs to be done morally and for you mentally and physically.” Influencing the world and being part of a positive change,” said Gandolfini.
“Rowan really believes in what he’s doing, and there comes a point, a very difficult point in growing up, where you start to look at a parent and say, ‘No, you’re wrong. That’s what I believe in, that’s me.” … I really listened and was really just moved by the experience.”
Daveed Diggs, in the first episode of the series, stars as Rabbi Marshall Zucker trying to cope with the pressures of his family while also managing these climate issues for his community.
“Despite the show’s lofty aspirations, the stories are actually very personal and… very human,” Diggs said. “Like that [Marshall] is contradictory, I think, is the way so many of us are contradictory, except that he happens to be a rabbi.”
While Diggs and his colleagues praised Burns’ thorough script, the project became even more successful Hamilton Actor Diggs to agree to a song and dance number on the series.
“I usually shy away from a musical number because of my background, but I loved her in this one, I felt it was so well placed,” he said. “I thought this inexplicable moment, which acts like a dreamy kind of metaphor, forces us to dig a little deeper into the material because you have to find your own reasons for why he’s thinking these things.”
“I just loved it. I was allowed to dance in a flooded synagogue. … They actually flooded it, it’s not like artificial water. I’ve just figured out how to rehearse and practice in the water and there are some really awful shots of this dance number that have me falling multiple times.”
“This is not fantasy, these are researched, scientific hypotheses”
While climate experts and activists have been shouting from the rooftops about urgently needed action on climate change, we have also seen that some individuals fail to understand why things like committing to net-zero emissions are so important. For extrapolations This is a way for the public to see possible future consequences that could result from our inaction.
“This is entertainment after all, we’re not here to scare people into stopping reading, but it’s nice to have filled in some of the white spots,” Lane said. “It’s a cautionary tale, and it’s good to see the humanity in all these scientific projections.”
“This is a very connecting story. It brings all continents into the same conversation. It is as if we are Pangea again, we are all united in one grouped continent.”
“These aren’t fantasy, these are researched, scientific hypotheses about where we’re really going,” Gandolfini added.
“Maybe you weren’t in the middle of a forest fire, but the human emotions that come with it, you recognize and think of yourself in those human relationships and then in those global settings as well.”
The actor added that while there’s certainly an element that the future can’t accurately show, there’s also an element that people don’t want to envision the future and choose to “switch off” and get away from the ” separate” what the future awaits to look like.
“I understand that that impulse is to keep ourselves comfortable and safe, and we as humans naturally want that, but it’s our duty to be a part of what’s actually happening,” Gandolfini said. “Instead of looking to the future with fear and nihilism and being overly anxious, just take action daily.”
“Educate yourself, let your friends and family know, and do what you can every day. And at the end of the day you’re like, ‘What have I done to improve my behavior and my potentially uncomfortable habits?’”
Diggs echoed Lane and Gandolfini’s statements, stressing that this could be an opportunity for entertainment and popular culture to help people grapple with the issues of climate change.
“That’s one of those things that television, or art in general, is really good at,” Diggs said. “If something can entertain us, we can care about it… if we see something we really like, it stays with us for a while.”
“I think to an extent, and it’s not like this show is going to solve climate change, but it can be a tool in the toolbox, just a reference point for people to talk about, which is also really useful.” “
For Lane, who has been a remarkably informed climate change activist and has protested alongside fellow actress Jane Fonda, Lane believes we can still make positive change.
“I think it’s a bonding experience to say that we are the stewards of this planet that we take for granted,” Lane said. “How many billions of us are there now? If we can have so many negative impacts, I am convinced that we could also have positive ones.”
