In The Audacity, wannabe tech titan Duncan Park (Billy Magnussen) and his ethically challenged therapist (Sarah Goldberg) try to find fortune and happiness in Silicon Valley. This latest series from Jonathan Glatzer (Succession and Better Call Saul) explores the many characters that make up the complex landscape of today’s tech world. We spoke to Magnussen and Glatzer about embodying Duncan’s chaos, the ironies of social media, and holding up a mirror to the realities of ‘human progress.’ 

I guess I should ask Dan [McDermott, CCO, AMC Global Media] about what planted the initial seed with him, but I love that he approached you about creating this show about this specific world. You’ve said you didn’t know much about tech specifically, but that the people and culture of Silicon Valley intrigued you. How did you immerse yourself in it all to get prepped to dive into this project? What surprised you the most about what you found?

Jonathan Glatzer: When Dan came to me with the idea of doing a show in tech, I wasn’t sure I was the right guy for it. Tech isn’t something we can distance ourselves from. It's in our lives in a way that we're constantly interacting with it, so it’s something that I think we should maybe look at and be a little bit more skeptical of. When I went up there, I spent about three weeks in Silicon Valley getting to know some people, interviewing some people.

I think what surprised me the most was the optimism that they all shared… that they clung onto in a way, when it comes to tech's influence on the universe and how it has a net positive. I would challenge them about various things. There's a lot of cases of tech going too far, putting profit ahead of people. The list is long, a lot of collateral damage. The ambitions of tech early on, to be a society builder, a community builder, something that helps us communicate with each other, that lowers the walls around tolerance and access to information. A lot of these things ultimately ended up going in the opposite direction. We’re not a more tolerant society at all. We are — 

Billy Magnussen: At each other's throats. 

JG: Yes! One of their ambitions was to help with climate change. And here we are now putting up these data centers — and there are thousands of them — that use as much energy as a small city. I wanted to hold up a mirror through satire and get to put that into a dramatic format. So, this world of Silicon Valley is the backdrop, but I really wanted to get deep into these characters. Billy as Duncan is fantastic. Ultimately, from a narrative standpoint, what really intrigued me was how to create the playground and the arena through which all these characters can slam into each other and see who becomes king of the mountain at the end of it. 

There are some moments of quiet amongst the moments of absolute chaos in Duncan’s internal world. He’s always operating at such a high frequency that seems absolutely exhausting! What jumped out to you about Duncan when you first started reading the scripts? What were you most excited to sink your teeth into? 

BM: Well, knowing the history of Jonathan Glatzer and his work, that's one of them! Knowing that I’d be working with one of the best living writers right now, that's a gift in itself. For me, it's the complexity of what Jonathan put down on paper with this guy. Like he said, the genesis of this guy, he came to Silicon Valley to do something hopeful, and then the toxicity of it all just bled into him. He drank the Kool-Aid that was the culture of this town and has become so delusional and far off from what he envisioned he was going to be. He’s hungry to get to the top. That need, that desire to be seen, I think that it's in every facet of life. Every industry has those people that are trying to get the top and they lose themselves.

I don't think he's a bad man. I think he just lost himself. I think diving into that over and over again and watching him make these horrible choices, when he believes he's doing the best thing he can is humorous and endearing — and heartbreaking to me. To bring that character to life is what I hope for as an actor. In 20 years of being in this industry, I was always a hired gun playing seven on the call sheet, helping the leads tell their story. 

JG: Not no more! 

BM: This is my first time being in the driver's seat and finding the depths of this character’s soul has been the best part of it all. Like you said, the manic-ness that’s in him comes to fruition. As an actor, I'm just the vessel for the crazy shit Jonathan wrote and bringing it to life! 

JG: The perfect vessel for it! He just showed an ability from the get-go, from when he first read for the part, this ability to bring the insecurity and the arrogance in a single moment, which is really hard to do. A lot of what acting is about is making a singular choice. Play one thing. I’ve always been a little bit frustrated with that, and I've been working with actors for more than 20 years. There are actors out there, it’s very rare, but they don't go by that rule. They can play more than one thing at once. I think that that’s a more accurate reflection of the way that we are as people. Our arrogance comes from insecurity. That toggle switches back and forth constantly. Billy is able to do that. 

BM: Thanks, Jonathan. Just preparing for this role was so fun. I remember taking the script and walking around with it. Just dreaming about this guy and creating him. It was a lot of long walks and I probably looked like an insane person walking down the street talking to myself. [Laughs] 

We all become accustomed to new technology and adopt it without a second thought... but the progress in the world of AI has made folks pause and think. The show brings up a lot of really hot button questions around the ethics of some of this tech and the people creating it. Are you usually an early adopter of new forms of tech or more of a ‘wait and see’ kind of person? 

JG: What do you think? [Laughs] Yeah, no, I'm not on social media personally. I was, and then I got skeptical. I think Silicon Valley doesn't want us to think too much about this, but the profits are fueled by our personal data. It’s literally within a matter of seconds of a data point is collected. How we linger on an ad, obviously what we look at, how we shop, how we eat, how we do everything there is to do, we do it with tech and tech knows it and they're watching. There’s something creepy about it. By no means am I trying to change people's behavior by making this show, but if it holds up a mirror and asks people to make sure that this is in fact what we want, then so be it. 

BM: The irony of that these apps that have become industries with so much money and power, is that we can literally delete them. We have the power to just hit ‘delete.’ But for some reason, we’re servants to them even though we have the power to turn them off.

Catch up on this season of The Audacity ahead of the season finale on May 31. You can stream episodes on amc.com (with a cable provider login), and the AMC apps for mobile and devices. You can also watch episodes via AMC+ at amcplus.com or through the new AMC+ app available on iPhone, iPad, Android, Fire TV, Apple TV, and Roku plus Samsung and Vizio smart TVs. AMC+ can also be streamed through a variety of providers, including AppleTV, Prime Video Channels, DirectTV, Dish, Roku Channel, Sling, and Xfinity. Sign up for AMC+ now.