Chernobyl creator: "The last thing I wanted to do was just make homework"

Slate

Craig Mazin explains why his five-part HBO miniseries began with nuclear accident at Chernobyl and waited until Episode 5 to get to the causes of the disaster. "I think if you see how people suffer, then and only then can you hear why," he says. "You will be far more interested to know, because you understand that there was a terrible cost. You’ve witnessed it. You’ve experienced it, and you’ve felt it." Mazin also slammed those read too much into Chernobyl. "There was a lot of chatter in the months and weeks leading up to the airing of Chernobyl, a lot of what I consider reactionary garbage from people who are, like me, pro-nuclear, but zealously so, and any time you enter into zealotry, you lose me. There were some really dumb articles written up. You know, It’s obvious this show is gonna show three-headed babies, and spread lies, and tell people that nuclear power is horrendous, and no, it’s not. That reactor was built nowhere else in the world except the Soviet Union." ALSO: Mazin recalls Episode 4 scenes that were too graphic to make it in the final cut.