Sam Esmail Said Barack Obama's Script Notes For His Netflix Film LEAVE THE WORLD BEHIND "Scared The F--k Out of Him"
Sam Esmail, creator of the two series Mr. Robot and Homecoming, has teamed up with Barack and Michelle Obama’s Higher Ground Productions to adapt the 2020 disaster novel Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam. The Netflix movie stars Julia Roberts and Ethan Hawke as a couple vacationing in Long Island when a world-threatening disaster takes place. Mahershala Ali plays the owner of the home the couple is renting. The owner shows up seeking refugee from the disaster with his daughter (Myha’la Herrold), forcing the two families to trust each other as the world potentially comes to an end.
Esmail recently told Vanity Fair (via Variety) that he received script notes from the former President, which scared him:
“In the original drafts of the script, I definitely pushed things a lot farther than they were in the film, and President Obama, having the experience he does have, was able to ground me a little bit on how things might unfold in reality. I am writing what I think is fiction, for the most part, I’m trying to keep it as true to life as possible, but I’m exaggerating and dramatizing. And to hear an ex-president say you’re off by a few details…I thought I was off by a lot! The fact that he said that scared the f*ck out of me.”
The Vanity Fair report said, “The filmmaker was more reassured when the Obamas suggested some of his potential plot points were too bleak or unlikely. Most of the former commander in chief’s notes, however, stemmed from what he’d observed about human nature, particularly the way fissures form between people who might otherwise find common cause.”
Esmail continued:
“He had a lot notes about the characters and the empathy we would have for them. I have to say he is a big movie lover, and he wasn’t just giving notes about things that were from his background. He was giving notes as a fan of the book, and he wanted to see a really good film.”
With Leave the World Behind, Esmail attempted to create a different kind of disaster movie than the ones he grew up watching.
“The disaster genre is one of my favorite genres, and the trick that we did in this film that differs from most disaster films is that in that genre, the focus—the priority of the storytelling—is on the set pieces. It’s on the spectacle of whatever the disaster might be for that story, and the characters were secondary to that. They’re more there to react and become the audience avatar. What I think Rumaan did so well in the novel, and what I tried to capture in the film is to invert that and make the focus be on the characters, and their reaction. The spectacle of the disaster is secondary and off in the distance.”
Leave the World Behind is set to have its world premiere at the AFI Fest in October. It will stream on Netflix starting December 8th.