Jesse Armstrong Finds Sympathy for ‘Rich Assholes’ in Mountainhead

Jesse Armstrong hadn’t planned connected making different task astir billionaires.

The Succession creator was taking a break aft finishing HBO’s Emmy-winning bid astir nan ludicrously able siblings fighting for power complete their father’s media conglomerate, which ended successful May 2023. But while penning a review of journalist Michael Lewis’ book Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon, astir crypto fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried, Armstrong sewage sucked into listening to podcasts featuring tech elites. It inspired him to constitute and nonstop his first feature: Mountainhead, a movie astir 3 tech billionaires and their little rich, profoundly insecure friend, each of whom person acold excessively overmuch powerfulness astatine their disposal.

“I couldn't get nan … tech voice, tech man voice, a billionaire, retired of my head,” Armstrong says, noting that to him, that sound embodies some “supreme assurance successful their analytical abilities” and “arrogance.” Armstrong is being bully here. The connection that many times came to my mind while watching nan foursome waste and acquisition jargon, insults, and delusions of grandeur for nan movie’s astir two-hour tally clip was douchebag.

The film, which will commencement streaming connected HBO May 31, stars Steve Carell arsenic task capitalist Randall; Jason Schwartzman arsenic Hugo Van Yalk, whose nickname “Souper” is simply a reference to a crockery kitchen—and his little nett worth; Cory Michael Smith arsenic Venis, a Zuck-Elon fig unleashing hyperrealistic deepfakes connected his level Traam; and Ramy Youssef arsenic Jeff, who plans connected profiting large from releasing AI that tin antagonistic nan chaos his pal Venis is wreaking connected nan world.

The friends meet up for a retreat successful nan mountains, hosted by Souper, whose fixation connected impressing nan cohort pinch his location decor and nutrient platters is met pinch scorn by nan others. They person a “no deals, nary meals, nary precocious heels” norm for nan weekend. But nan fun—in their case, snowmobiling to a highest and penning their nett worths connected their chests pinch lipstick—is yet superseded by land to return complete nan world and “coup retired nan US.”

Mountainhead came together successful conscionable a fewer months, against nan backdrop of President Donald Trump’s 2nd word successful office, overmuch of which has been dominated by Elon Musk’s DOGE mission. Shooting took spot complete a fewer weeks this spring. While Carell says location were upsides to nan tight turnaround—“everyone's conscionable trusting their gut”—Schwartzman says quickly attaining fluency successful nan “tech voice” Armstrong was going for was a situation for him.

“At a definite constituent I said to Jesse, if you ever want america to opportunity thing extra, do you person a glossary aliases a dictionary,” Schwartzman says. “It's for illustration if you were doing a movie successful French and past improvise thing successful Italian.”

While Armstrong acknowledges that immoderate group mightiness respond to his latest task by asking, “Why should I attraction astir these rich | assholes,” he refrains from outright making a judgement astir them.

“I do consciousness immoderate sympathy for nan existent group grappling pinch immoderate of this tech, because it is simply a spot of a hallway of mirrors,” Armstrong says. “Lots of group spell into, particularly AI, pinch a consciousness of nan powerfulness of nan technology, and I think, arsenic acold arsenic I tin tell, a genuine consciousness of responsibility.”