‘The Audacity’ Cast Asks Real-Life Tech Moguls to ‘Calm Down’ (VIDEO)

The sheer audacity of these tech moguls. AMC’s new Silicon Valley drama debuted on Sunday, April 12, delivering a batch of characters that are satires of the industry titans who make the addictive technology that are, for better or worse, ubiquitous in our everyday lives. Despite claiming to be creating technology that will sustain humanity, the adults of The Audacity are concerningly detached from humanity. Their kids have notes about the so-called important things their parents contribute to the world.

Set inside the bubble of Silicon Valley, The Audacity takes on the warped dreams, outsized egos, and ethical lapses of the self-styled inventors of the future. In a world of jaded billionaires, psychiatrist-gurus, bio-hacked tech bros, AI labs, and disillusioned teens being optimized in elite private schools, an audacious data-mining CEO strives to turn insight and influence into profit and power. The darkly comedic drama confronts reality, privacy, and the delusions fueling our ever-changing world.

Jonathan Glatzer created the series. Glatzer is an Emmy and Peabody Award-winning writer from Better Call Saul, Succession, and Bad Sisters. The Audacity stars Billy Magnussen, Sarah Goldberg, Zach Galifianakis, Lucy Punch, Simon Helberg, Rob Corddry, Meaghan Rath, Paul Adelstein, Everett Blunck, Thailey Roberge, and Ava Marie Telek. In the series premiere, viewers met Magnussen’s Duncan, who is obsessed with making sure his psychologist, Joanne (Goldberg), is committed to doctor-patient confidentiality, because if what he’s done goes public, he’s in big trouble. The cast reveals who inspired their characters — and what they’d like to say to the real-life tech moguls they’re satirizing — in the video interview above.

What Duncan doesn’t realize is that Joanne has skeletons in her closet, too. Goldberg tells TV Insider that she, Magnussen, and Glatzer decided early during filming that Duncan asks about confidentiality at the beginning of every session they have, making him her most irritating client. The “struggles” of these exorbitantly wealthy clients have left Joanne jaded over the years, and she’s let herself become a bit morally grey because, as Goldberg explains, she’s not anywhere near as bad as the wealthy elite on her private practice’s roster.

Ed Araquel / AMC

The Barry star says that Silicon Valley is the perfect setting for cultural criticism of AI and social media, “because it’s such an extreme place and it is the home of the so-called self-professed architects of the future.” While critiquing AI like Barry critiqued Hollywood was of interest to Goldberg, she’s “more interested in Jonathan’s bigger questions about humanity.”

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Who Is the Inspiration for 'The Audacity's Tech CEO? Billy Magnusson & Creators Explain

“He’s getting to something so much deeper about our core nature,” she explains. “For these people, mostly men, to make the kind of money that they do off of these platforms, the behavior has to already be there. Don’t get me wrong, I hold many accountable for a lot. What they’ve done is they’ve taken the seeds of what’s already within us that’s unpleasant, and they’ve found ways to manipulate it and commodify it, but they didn’t invent the behavior. I feel that Jonathan’s really getting to the root of that and the big questions about what makes us human and how are we so far away from ourselves?”

“My hope is that the desperate need we all have, a valid desperate need to connect, will sustain,” she continues. “Television didn’t kill theater, so my hope is that AI won’t kill human-based art. And I promise to read and watch your interviews if you promise to watch The Audacity.”

Learn more about the inspiration behind the drama in the full video interview above. Episodes 1 and 2 are available now on AMC+. The Audacity has already been renewed for Season 2.

The Audacity, Sundays, 9/8c, AMC, Streaming on AMC+