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Jesse Armstrong<\/strong> doesn\u2019t believe in evil\u2014he thinks. \u201cI think everyone behaves like they do for reasons which you could eventually get to the bottom of,\u201d the prolific writer and producer says. For four deliciously diabolical seasons, Armstrong tested his theory by exploring the machinations and inner psyches of the at least evil-adjacent Roy family on Succession<\/em>. His new HBO film Mountainhead,<\/em><\/a> which premiered May 31, explores it once again, this time with tech-bro autocrats.<\/p>\n Steve Carell,<\/strong> Ramy Youssef<\/strong>, Cory Michael Smith,<\/strong> and Jason Schwartzman<\/strong> play Randall, Jeff, Venis (pronounced like \u201cVenice,\u201d not \u201cVenus\u201d), and Hugo\u2014all massively successful tech entrepreneurs, all worth more than a billion dollars. (Except mere hundred-thousandaire Hugo, whom the others call \u201cSouper,\u201d short for \u201cSoup Kitchen.\u201d) While they gather for a boys weekend, the world outside Hugo\u2019s palatial estate is quite literally falling apart. Governments are collapsing, stocks are crashing, and scores and scores of people are dying\u2014all because of unregulated AI technology that Venis is directly responsible for unleashing into the world.<\/p>\n Believe it or not, Mountainhead<\/em> is Armstrong\u2019s major directorial debut. Although he took home four Emmys for writing and creating Succession<\/em>, Armstrong never directed an episode of the series\u2014though he did consider it. \u201cIt\u2019s impossible time-wise to do the writing I needed to do and also direct one,\u201d Armstrong says. He also had a slight dose of imposter syndrome. \u201cMark Mylod<\/strong> had been such a close collaborator and a valued one, and he often did the finales,\u201d he says. To propose himself as a director \u201cfelt kind of presumptuous and rude; I worried I wouldn\u2019t do as good a job as he would.\u201d<\/p>\n For Mountainhead<\/em>, he put his fears aside. \u201cI know the tone, I know what I want to get. It\u2019s not doing Game of Thrones<\/em>. You have some helicopters, but not even that many helicopters,\u201d he says. Maybe he\u2019d have had more if the film hadn\u2019t been made so quickly. Armstrong pitched the film to HBO president Casey Bloys<\/strong> in December; he wrote the script in January, and they shot on location in March, editing as they went along before wrapping in early April. But Armstrong sees the truncated timeline as a blessing in disguise. \u201cI was anxious about directing for the first time. Not having too much time to reconsider or worry actually felt like kind of an advantage,\u201d he says. \u201cI wasn\u2019t going to read so many interviews with great directors. I wasn\u2019t going to get paralyzed.\u201d<\/p>\n