Leonardo DiCaprio & Meryl Streep Talk Climate-Crisis Comedy ‘Don’t Look Up’

Sunday saw a star-studded New York premiere for the new movie “Don’t Look Up,” and “Extra’s” Cheslie Kryst was there talking with Oscar winners Leonardo DiCaprio and Meryl Streep about the importance of the film.

The movie centers on Leo and Jennifer Lawrence as low-level astronomers who must travel the world to warn of a coming comet that could cause global destruction. Jonah Hill stars as Ariana Grande, Tyler Perry, Cate Blanchett, and Tyler Perry as morning television hosts.

Leo told Cheslie, “I wanted it to really be… me tipping my hat to the scientific community and those that really devote their lives to the issues like this, that really know what they’re talking about, and that are going to save us from imminent disasters like the climate crisis.”

Leo is proud of an especially emotional scene that was rewritten fifteen times. Referencing the 1976 drama “Network,” famous for Peter Finch’s “I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore” speech, he said, “We worked on that endlessly and I love movies like ‘Network’… They always have those seminal moments where the characters break down.”

“Don’t Look Up” is a sci-fi comedy and satire on our current climate crisis, with Meryl playing a president in denial. She told Cheslie, “Everybody wanted to make this so bad because of what it’s about.”

Cheslie asked who she based her character on, and Streep shared, “I had a bunch of different people. Some were related to me. Some are related to me. I’m kidding.” She added, “This is kind of a preposterous character because, as you and I know, no woman elected president would be allowed to have multiple boyfriends and appoint them to the Supreme Court. That just would not fly.”

Filming in the middle a global crisis, COVID-19 was not an easy task. “This was a weird, weird thing because… shooting the rehearsals like this and then we had the shield that comes down over the top so you couldn’t hear anything anybody’s saying in the rehearsal. Then they say… ‘Okay, we’re going to shoot.’ Everybody rips everything away and you go… ‘I worked with you 17 years ago!’”