Welcome to the Urgent Futures podcast, the show that finds {signals} in the noise. Each week, I sit down with leading thinkers whose research, concepts, and questions clarify the chaos, from culture to the cosmos.
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My guest this week is Adam McKay.
Adam Mckay is an Academy Award-winning writer, director, and producer whose work spans comedy, film, television, documentaries, and podcasting. He won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for The Big Short and earned additional Academy Award nominations for Vice and Netflix’s global hit Don’t Look Up. His producing credits also include The Menu, Booksmart, Hustlers, The Chair Company, and HBO’s acclaimed series Succession, for which he directed the pilot and won a Directors Guild Award.
Before becoming one of Hollywood’s most influential filmmakers, McKay made his name in the comedy world as a founding member of the Upright Citizens Brigade. In 1995, McKay and Will Ferrell happened to start on the same day at Saturday Night Live, where he became Head Writer. McKay and Ferrell’s time at SNL led to collaborations that established their unique absurdist style on Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004) followed by Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006), Step Brothers (2008), The Other Guys (2010) and Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (2013).
Beyond film and television, McKay is also an active producer of documentaries and podcasts focused on politics, culture, sports, and social issues. In 2023, he founded Yellow Dot Studios, a nonprofit media organization dedicated to combating climate misinformation through comedy and storytelling.
In 2016, McKay joined the Creative Council of Represent Us, the largest grassroots anti-corruption campaign in the US to pass laws that stop political bribery, end secret money and give voters a stronger voice. He is passionate about the climate crisis and is affiliated with numerous climate organizations, including the Climate Emergency Fund to whom he donated $4M in 2022. In addition to aiding the movement General Strike for Resignations (GS4R), a group that helps finance strike-support platforms across labor unions, climate organizations and social justice groups, McKay supports DSA LA, Homeless Health Care LA and Amnesty International.
Odds are you’ve seen one of the many film and TV projects that Adam has written, directed, produced, or otherwise. It’s no exaggeration to say he’s one of the most important filmmakers of the twenty-first century. But that’s not the reason I was so excited to have him on the show (well, okay, it’s at least part of the reason!).
We originally connected on social media, where both of us were quite concerned about a new credible scientific paper that claimed we may be on track for 3°C world by 2050, which, to make a long story short, is a truly harrowing prospect. And yet nobody seemed interested in covering the story. Even now, as we head into this purported Super-Duper El Nino, so many other issues magnetize public attention away from this global crisis.
Adam’s willingness to be vocal about issues like climate change and labor rights speaks not only to his ethics and courage, but to how rigorously he’s researched this stuff. And that research isn’t sitting idly in his mind, he’s applying it to a range of different creative projects.
Many of you know that the subject of creativity in crisis is close to my heart; I actually just finished my first semester teaching it at University of Nebraska (shoutout to all my students for taking that ride with me). Adam’s evolution as a storyteller and public figure epitomizes what I hope to see more of from creative folks; a willingness to understand the systems that shape our world and the bravery to do something about through creative risk-taking. I could go on and on about this episode but instead of that I’m going to let you hear it from Adam. Please enjoy this powerful conversation with Adam McKay.
Another episode you might like:
Megan Mayhew-Bergman of Open Field Stories on strategic climate storytelling:
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CREDITS: This podcast is edited and produced by Adam Labrie and me, Jesse Damiani. Adam Labrie also edited the video version, which is available on YouTube. The podcast is presented by Reality Studies. If you appreciate the work I’m doing, please subscribe and share it with someone you think would enjoy it.
Find more episodes of Urgent Futures at: youtube.com/@UrgentFutures. Past conversations include Taylor Lorenz, Lisa Messeri, Legacy Russell, William E. Rees, Renée DiResta, and more. Here is another recent episode with Juan Sebastián Pinto on tech activism and building solidarity to combat AI risks:
