Get Your First Look At President Meryl Streep In Adam McKay's Don't Look Up

Imagine a world where an impending catastrophic event was bearing down on humanity and everyone just ... went about their normal business, blithely ignoring it. This scenario hits uncomfortably close to home these days for a number of reasons and, as you might expect from a filmmaker like Adam McKay, that's exactly the point. "Don't Look Up" will be the filmmaker's latest mix of comedy and politics, following a pair of scientists as they attempt to convince the world to take the threat of an oncoming comet seriously. 

Today, we're getting a new look at the cast of heavy-hitters, led by Meryl Streep as the President of the United States. Check out all the details below.

The one-two punch of "The Big Short" and "Vice" seems to have landed Adam McKay firmly in the wheelhouse of go-to political commentator, and he's embraced it wholeheartedly. To turn the subtext into text, "Don't Look Up" is essentially a climate change metaphor. And while not even McKay could have predicted that this theme would feel even more relevant in the midst of an ongoing pandemic, the combined weight of all of our current events sure lend a sense of urgency and timeliness to the upcoming film. As for casting Streep, McKay indicates to Entertainment Weekly that her character's personality and priorities will be influenced by all sorts of world leaders in our recent past:

"She's very concerned about the poll numbers, very concerned about the politics, loves her own celebrity. She's a hybrid of all the ridiculous leaders that we've had for the past ten, 20, 30 years."

In addition to Streep, the A-list ensemble also features Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence as the scientists who first make the existential discovery of the approaching comet. In explaining his casting decisions regarding the two stars, McKay goes even further to tout his connection with Lawrence and his very collaborative approach to figuring out DiCaprio's character:

"I've known Jennifer for a good while now. One of the first meetings she ever took in Los Angeles was with me. She is a massive fan of "Step Brothers." I've been a giant fan [of hers] since she first came on the scene and she just straight up makes me laugh. So I wrote this role for her. She was the first actor in."

"Leo was interested and then the pandemic hit. So we used lot of the time during the pandemic to just go through the script, talk about his character. He's really smart, he really knows movies, he knows movie history, he understands characters, and it was very enjoyable."

It's probably a safe bet that the pandemic shutdown allowed McKay the opportunity to tailor the script to incorporate the ongoing crisis in some way, which is honestly how I prefer that movies or shows tackle the elephant in the room. Directly taking the virus and writing it into scripts has so far seemed to run the risk of feeling outdated and in poor taste by the time the film finally comes out. Instead, using a larger-than-life metaphor to acknowledge our new reality feels like the right way to go about it.

The sprawling cast also features Jonah Hill, Cate Blanchett, Tyler Perry, Rob Morgan, Mark Rylance, Ron Perlman, Timothée Chalamet, Ariana Grande, Kid Cudi, Himesh Patel, Melanie Lynskey, Michael Chiklis, and Tomer Sisley. There's even a cameo by Chris Evans. Says McKay, "Chris Evans has a little cameo in the movie. He's very funny. I won't give away who he plays but he does pop up in the movie."

Netflix also provided a whole assortment of images from the film, a few of which you can see for yourself below. "Don't Look Up" comes to a selection of theaters on December 10, 2021, and to Netflix for everyone else on December 24, 2021.