The day disaster struck
Thirty-three years since the terrifying explosion, Des Sampson talks to the team behind a new five-part documentary series on Chernobyl
When the fourth reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant exploded, on April 26, 1986, it — quite literally — radiated shockwaves around the world. It was a catastrophe that threatened to irradiate much of Europe, as chillingly depicted in Chernobyl, Sky/HBO’s harrowing portrayal of the disaster. It’s a tragedy that Stellan Skarsgard, who stars as Boris Shcherbina, the Russian bureaucrat charged with investigating the tragedy, recalls vividly.
“I remember the first indication of it was when radiation was detected at one of our nuclear plants, in Sweden. Everyone thought, ‘Uh, oh, we’re in trouble.’ But pretty quickly they realised it came from the atmosphere and from a kind of fuel that was only used in the Soviet Union. Then they just looked at the wind patterns and traced it back to Chernobyl,” he recounts, matterof-factly. “Although there was relief it wasn’t our reactor, we still worried because we didn’t know what was going to happen. But we didn’t panic, as such, mainly because we Swedes aren’t prone to panic.”
Part of the reason why there was less panic than there should have been was the way the Soviet hierarchy reacted to the incident: they steadfastly downplayed its significance, released scant details, falsified records and even disseminated “fake news” — long before Trump ever co-opted the term.
“Very little information came out from the Soviet Union and some of it was directly false about the numbers [killed] and seriousness of the accident,” acknowledges Jared Harris, who portrays physicist Valery Legasov, brought in to investigate the causes and consequences of Chernobyl. “The level of denial was unbelievable, with party bureaucrats insisting there was ‘nothing wrong’, because they were trying to protect their jobs.”
Thirty-three years later, the blighted Ukrainian complex and its abandoned, neighbouring township of Pripyat remain a desolate, decaying, radioactive reminder of the day disaster struck at the heart of the thenSoviet Union’s nuclear regime. But the true magnitude of the accident is only now being explored in Chernobyl, a traumatic, thoughtprovoking, five-part series that exposes the chilling realities behind the propaganda.
“The outcome could have been far, far worse than it was, if they hadn’t contained the leak and fixed the problem,” asserts Harris. “Some of the things that could have gone wrong would have made Europe uninhabitable for decades and it’s no exaggeration to say it could have been the end of the world because we were, quite literally, within 48 hours of Armageddon.
“It’s important to remember that the Soviet Union had built something like 18 or 20 reactors, which all had the same inherent problem as the one in Chernobyl, so potentially every single one could have done the same thing,” he adds. “That’s a really scary thought, and something people needed to know about. That’s why my character, Legasov, left behind a first-person account of what really happened — what caused the
accident — before taking his own life. By doing that, he hoped it would provoke a response within the community and scientists would start talking about it.”
It did, with Chernobyl largely based on Legasov’s whistle-blowing revelations rather than the Kremlin’s watered-down, covered-up version of events. Harris admits the bleak reality of Chernobyl made it a difficult but compelling project to be involved in, although he didn’t enjoy struggling to master quantum physics to convey his part so convincingly.
“I’m not scientifically minded and one big part of my job was being able to understand the science so well that I could explain it easily. That was a real challenge, because it’s very technical, very dense material,” he says. “I drew a lot of pictures and diagrams, just so I could understand what I was talking about!”
It was the same for Emily Watson, who shines as the pivotal Belarusian nuclear physicist Ulana Khomyuk. Her character uncovers the disquieting truth about the Chernobyl disaster and presents the facts to the Politburo, determined to avert a future calamity.
“It was like being back at school and having to do Einstein’s Theory of Relativity,” she deadpans. “I’d remember it for the scenes, so that I could be convincing, but a few seconds later it was gone! I couldn’t, for the life of me, remember any of it now.”
But Watson persisted because she was determined to do the project justice, given its weighty, historical significance and the realisation that these events and the ensuing cover-up have uncanny parallels with today, in the way governments have downplayed the significance of another equally disastrous calamity confronting us: climate change.
“The control of truth and the withholding of information are intensely dangerous. Sadly, it’s still happening now, which is why I think it’s a story that’s not only important but also very relevant, given what’s going on in the world today with climate change.
“We’re obviously up s*** creek without a paddle and the boat’s got a hole in it — but governments are still denying the facts.
“It makes you wonder why,” adds Watson. “It makes you wonder how many people, with vested interests in Washington and who knows where else, are quietly ignoring climate science because it’s inconvenient.
“It’s something I’ve thought about in the past but doing this has really concentrated my mind on it. Also, I’ve got kids who are very vocal about what’s happening to the world. They went on a Climate Change march recently and I accompanied them, because we need to face up to realities — just as we do in this series — and change before we close the door on life as we know it.”
If that all sounds rather noble, there was another, far simpler explanation for Watson committing to Chernobyl; the chance to work together with Skarsgard again, 22 years after their collaboration on Lars Von Trier’s Breaking the Waves, which was Watson’s film debut.
“It was so lovely to spend some time together again, because that first film was a very strong experience for me, being my first film,” Watson says. “Ever since then, Stellan has been a benchmark for me on how to act and how to conduct yourself as an actor.”
“It was fantastic to work with Emily again,” Skarsgard says. “It was also a lot of fun, which is just as well, because when you deal with dark materials like this, you need a bit of fun and lightness, on set, to survive.”