Robert De Niro and ‘Zero Day’ creators talks Netflix series

Back now with the creators of the new Netflix political thriller, Zero Day. Noah Oppenheim and Eric Neumann are the creators, of course, and Hollywood legend here himself, Robert De Niro, serves as an executive producer and leads this all-star cast. He plays George Mullen, a respected former U.S. president who's tasked with finding the people responsible for a devastating cyber attack. Take a look. I think you've got something to hide, George. You heard me. I know you're flailing, lost in a fog, blinded by your hate for real Americans, your hate for people like me. My friends, tonight I'm afraid they're coming for us. Maybe you're next. Maybe it's me. Hell, it may damn well be me. Yeah, keep at it. We'll see. I dare you, Georgie. Come and get me. Good morning to everybody. Yeah, it's been such a pleasure to meet so much of the cast this week. Okay, so we heard you tell Savannah you wanted to do a series in New York. How did these two guys talk you into it? They seem very persuasive. Well, I met Eric first and he had, I was told, you know, we met and he had an idea which I later learned now that he and Noah had met earlier in the week in New York and had gone over this thing and it sounded good. And so he sent me what you call treatment of it and sounded very good, very smart, intelligent. And I was happy, you know, to be part of it. Were you familiar with the term Zero Day before this? No. No. I mean, I don't know whether you mean Zero Day as Zero Day because of the title or... As a concept. I didn't know that it was a concept. I thought it was just a title, a good title. How do you decide, okay, we're going to, not only are we going to come up with this great political idea, political thriller, but let's go to a guy who's so well respected and has never done television before. You set the bar. Do you want to climb the highest mountain? Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, we, you know, Eric and I started talking about trying to do a thriller that would look at, you know, our collective relationship with the truth and the fact that there's such a heated debate over right now, what's real, what's not, what are facts, what aren't. And when we were thinking about who could play a former president who would immediately come off with the gravitas and the intelligence and instill confidence, you know, that's a pretty short list of folks. And we decided, let's just go with the greatest living screen actor. So see what happens. We'll go from there. And as Noah describes this person that he wanted, when you look at this character, you get to play George Mullen, this former president who's called into action in this moment of crisis. Like what traits does this character have that makes him so uniquely attuned for this moment? Well, the Angela Bassett's character, playing the president, felt that even though he hadn't been president for 12 years and only one term, but there's a reason for that. I won't give it away. She thought he had the respect, the reputation, gravitas, if you want, to be called in for this very serious commission to find out what happened. And so he is somebody when we talked about the character, somebody who is straightforward, ethical, honest, not that he hasn't done things that are not so great, but at least he will, when the time comes, have to admit them, cop to them, be straight, be honest, try his best to, especially to the people, the country. And so, again, she felt that he would be the best one that people would understand and respect and go along with whatever decisions he makes, which are tough. Some are tough. A complex character for a complex moment. Yeah, exactly. You mentioned Angela Bassett. You also got Connie Britton. You got Matthew Rudin. You got Lizzie Kaplan. Is there anybody who that told you to no? No, actually. This is a rare case of getting our first choice in every role. We have Jesse Plemons, a phenomenal actor. We have Joan Allen. It's a stacked cast. Many of them have been on the show in the last few days, which is nice. Thank you for having them. And you were able to get Savannah Guthrie up and coming. We were. We asked ourselves, who's the Robert De Niro of news anchors? And we said Savannah is the only choice. So when you do something like that, you're trying to give a certain amount of reality to something like this. And with this plot, is that important? Absolutely. Critical. I think we wanted to make sure that the show felt authentic, grounded in the real world, holding up a mirror to what's going on in this country and the world as a whole. And I think in order for a thriller like this to work and for you to be engrossed by it, it's got to feel real. And so that was very important. And Robert, you're a true New Yorker. What was the experience like being able to film in New York? And how much did you just get to enjoy that process? Well, that's the initial reason I wanted to do it, though it turned out much better than not that I expected something not to be good, but this was this was good. And that, of course, much better. But, you know, you shoot in New York, at least you go home, you come out. It's the same thing. You've got this. It's good. It's nice to be in New York. Would you do another TV series? I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, it's a lot of work. Do the Today Show. You started seven. Yeah, I got it. I got it. Yeah, well, we appreciate you putting in the work today with us. Bob, Noah, Eric, thank you so much for being here and really don't miss zero day streaming on Netflix. We've all been watching. It's excellent. Hey, thanks for watching. And don't forget, you can catch the Today Show every morning on NBC or take today when you're on the go. 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