by Anthony Frajman
With roles in Succession and the US series The Lost Symbol, in which he played Robert Langdon, the Dan Brown protagonist formerly played by Tom Hanks, Zukerman is quickly gaining attention in Hollywood.
For his latest project, Zukerman has turned to Aussie elevated genre for the Cooma-shot In Vitro.
An eerie, slow-burn futuristic thriller set against the backdrop of climate change, Will Howarth and Tom McKeith’s film follows Jack (Zukerman) and Layla (Talia Zucker), who live on a cattle farm in the near future. While Jack runs biotechnology experiments on his livestock, things soon take a scary, unexpected turn.
Zukerman says he was immediately interested in In Vitro because of the issues that the film examines.
“I think that the film is full of really big ideas, and I love spending time in that world. There are complicated things going on. That’s the joy of the work,” Zukerman says.
Not just a sci-fi, In Vitro tackles difficult and timely issues including domestic abuse, coercive control and climate change.
“What struck me early on was how (Will Howarth and Tom McKeith) seemed to sew a thread between a lot of very important issues that are happening. The horrors that are existing in the world right now. (Like) male control,” Zukerman says.
“(Also), tech and the way we’re using quick solutions to address a huge problem in climate change. And I think brute forcing our way to solutions might not be the answer. Maybe there’s more of an answer in looking at the humanity of things, which my character just doesn’t do in the film. He can’t look at the life of it. He doesn’t even believe in the life of an animal, let alone the life of a person. He just takes, takes whatever. He will just take what he needs.”
In Vitro gave Zukerman an opportunity to play a difficult character, yet one who is definitely not a villain. The part was a challenge that he relished.
“I’ve played a bunch of dark characters. Ultimately, if you take away the sci-fi elements, In Vitro is a story about domestic violence, domestic control. Mining the character’s internal shortcomings, vulnerability, that’s going to be a far more interesting perspective on this, making him just so normal. That was the approach. It’s difficult when you talk about horrible people. It’s dangerous to talk about empathy, but I didn’t want to know what led him to do this. It didn’t make any sense for him to simply be evil,” Zukerman says.
One of the biggest challenges for the actor in playing the character was not giving away the film’s twists.
“I’ve played a few characters with big secrets, and it’s such a big secret in this film, and that requires deep collaboration with the directors to try to figure out where we drop the breadcrumbs of that story. That’s always challenging because that’s not necessarily simply about playing the scene, the reality. We’re sort of tracking a story,” Zukerman says.
Zukerman is perhaps best known in the US for his role in Succession, as Nate Sofrelli, a political advisor and former lover of Shiv Roy. He says that acting in the series was incredibly rewarding.
“I wasn’t necessarily a major part of Succession, but there was something very special about that production that made everyone who touched it feel like they were close to the creative muscle of that project. That was, I think, one of the reasons it’s so special. It was just something about the culture there. You have to be the lead of something to feel that close to the action. Sometimes you can feel it from a little further out.”
While Zukerman has reached a certain level in the US, allowing him to take on bigger roles, he says that working on lower-budgeted Aussie projects is very satisfying.
“I never necessarily enjoy anything, at the time. But this was a very rewarding project. And it was also very moving because you saw the extent that people would go to take care of the project and each other. That’s just a very special thing. And the fact that I got to make it with my mates, it’s just great.”
In Vitro is in cinemas 27 March 2025
