'The Young Pope' Creator on Parallels to Trump & Memes

THR interview with the showrunner of The Young Pope, to air on HBO this year



"...Paolo Sorrentino, the Italian filmmaker who created, wrote and directed all 10 episodes of the HBO series, has also seen the memes. Sorrentino, with the assistance of a translator, spoke with The Hollywood Reporter about his show's internet popularity, the parallels between conservative Pope Pius XIII and President-elect Donald Trump, and whether he's even tried Cherry Coke Zero. Plus, he reveals that he's already working on a second season, though it hasn't officially been ordered yet.

THR:At its core, what is this show is about?



Sorrentino:In the final analysis, it talks about that unsettling little noise of solitude, of loneliness that's inside all of us and that never balances. Which is not the solitude of somebody who doesn't have anybody to chat with in the evening, but it is a more profound, deeper condition and sense of uneasiness [that] in the final analysis you are alone. And that's why those who have that knowledge of this solitude ask themselves the question of God


THR:Exactly — was that something you wanted to portray? What do you think about the parallels that we can see right now?



Sorretino: The parallel between [Lenny] and Trump is totally casual because I wrote this character of the pope a long time ago when Obama was the president. However, important nations like the U.S. and like the Vatican, they know that they are important because they know that they remain loyal to themselves. They're faithful to themselves. Pope Francis and Obama have led their countries, their states in a new direction and probably after that there will be the opposite tendency. What will happen afterward will be a conservative [push] to bring back to the status quo of what was there before. And this explains why, after a pope like we have today, there could be a pope like Jude Law and why, after Obama, there could be a president like Trump. Because there is a conscious, collective tendency to maintain the status quo as it was before. Unconsciously, a state, a nation feels the need to survive. And when there is somebody who says no, let's face life in a different way, it could create an unconscious collective opposite reaction..."

link