Nancy Updike

I mean, was it a way for you to channel, to sort of organize or contain your own dread as a project?

I mean, was it a way for you to channel, to sort of organize or contain your own dread as a project?

Once I got an answer to why make Strange Love now, we moved into a meandery but very enjoyable conversation about how to confront your dread these days. Because I am taking suggestions. And Armando's work is something I've returned to again and again. And what I'm thinking now is that, especially with his movies and with Strange Love, I come for the comedy, but maybe stay for the dread.

Once I got an answer to why make Strange Love now, we moved into a meandery but very enjoyable conversation about how to confront your dread these days. Because I am taking suggestions. And Armando's work is something I've returned to again and again. And what I'm thinking now is that, especially with his movies and with Strange Love, I come for the comedy, but maybe stay for the dread.

So we talked about how do you go about making comedy out of catastrophe and fear? You've said that people underestimate comedy, which I agree, especially about things that are sort of big and terrifying. But make the case. What do people underestimate its ability to do that you feel like, no, no, it's best. It's best at that.

So we talked about how do you go about making comedy out of catastrophe and fear? You've said that people underestimate comedy, which I agree, especially about things that are sort of big and terrifying. But make the case. What do people underestimate its ability to do that you feel like, no, no, it's best. It's best at that.

They can't control it or predict it.

They can't control it or predict it.

The Great Dictator is a movie about Hitler that Charlie Chaplin put out, incredibly, in 1940.

The Great Dictator is a movie about Hitler that Charlie Chaplin put out, incredibly, in 1940.

Armando pulls it off because he doesn't skimp on either the bad in The Death of Stalin or the comedy. The bad is quite bad, and the funny is really funny. And one way I've noticed that he keeps those two moods aloft at the same time in many of his projects. He often focuses on people who work together.

Armando pulls it off because he doesn't skimp on either the bad in The Death of Stalin or the comedy. The bad is quite bad, and the funny is really funny. And one way I've noticed that he keeps those two moods aloft at the same time in many of his projects. He often focuses on people who work together.

In The Death of Stalin, there's this intense rivalry among the men around Stalin, all jockeying for power after he dies, scheming and whinging and flailing. That workplace power struggle is what made Veep so funny, too. In the Strangelove play, the president and his advisors are in the war room, gathered around a ludicrously large circular table, mostly arguing.

In The Death of Stalin, there's this intense rivalry among the men around Stalin, all jockeying for power after he dies, scheming and whinging and flailing. That workplace power struggle is what made Veep so funny, too. In the Strangelove play, the president and his advisors are in the war room, gathered around a ludicrously large circular table, mostly arguing.

And one guy, a guy you may know from your own job, keeps throwing out bad ideas in a loud voice, in a sort of Roman Roy, I'm the only one being real here, way. For instance, he argues that maybe the thing to do is to lean into this attack the U.S. has launched, not bring back the bombers that are on their way, but send more planes with more bombs, try to win this war rather than try to stop it.

And one guy, a guy you may know from your own job, keeps throwing out bad ideas in a loud voice, in a sort of Roman Roy, I'm the only one being real here, way. For instance, he argues that maybe the thing to do is to lean into this attack the U.S. has launched, not bring back the bombers that are on their way, but send more planes with more bombs, try to win this war rather than try to stop it.

Pre-talliate isn't in the Strangelove movie, but it was built out of logic that is in there and that Armando and the director and co-adapter, Sean Foley, expanded and riffed on.

Pre-talliate isn't in the Strangelove movie, but it was built out of logic that is in there and that Armando and the director and co-adapter, Sean Foley, expanded and riffed on.

But Armando says sometimes you really don't need to riff or invent. Sometimes comedy is just sitting there, waiting to be picked up, like a $100 bill on the sidewalk.

But Armando says sometimes you really don't need to riff or invent. Sometimes comedy is just sitting there, waiting to be picked up, like a $100 bill on the sidewalk.