As The Big Short generates award buzz, director Adam McKay discusses how he works and the critical factor in choosing ideas.
In the past, Adam McKay had to bake his political statements into the thematic background of his movies. There’s a sharp sendup of George W. Bush’s American exceptionalism lurking in the high comedy of Talladega Nights, for instance, and beneath the buddy cop parody veneer, The Other Guys is a scathing critique of the close relationship between Wall Street and federal government regulators. With The Big Short, however, McKay finally has the creative freedom to go the other way, keeping the comedy relatively low key, and bringing the message to the foreground.
