Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a Silicon Valley nightmare in the teaser trailer for Super Pumped
The anthology series about Uber premieres on February 27
Aux News Super Pumped
It’s a big year for TV shows based on Silicon Valley stories. In addition to Hulu’s Theranos series The Dropout coming this March, there’s also Super Pumped, Showtime’s anthology series based on Mike Issac’s book Super Pumped: The Battle For Uber. The first season chronicles the downfall of Uber’s former CEO Travis Kalanick, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. And in case you’re wondering how well the actor embodies the ousted founder of Uber, you’ll find out now in the first official teaser trailer.
Gordon-Levitt transforms into a Silicon Valley terror, with slicked back hair and a tight black t-shirt paired with a blazer, who assures that “contrary to what you might have read, [he] is not a monster.” But, that’s quickly proven to not be quite accurate, with a shot of Kalanick screaming at his employees, “My life is on the line here, and all of you—you’ll bleed for it!”
We also get a glimpse at Uma Thurman as Arianna Huffington, the co-founder of The Huffington Post, who was an Uber board member. For those who miss seeing Kyle Chandler on TV, he also has a big role on the show as Bill Gurley, who’s also one of the former board members and is described as a “plainspoken, brilliant Texan venture capitalist who bets his sterling reputation on Uber’s success–and then has to live with the consequences.”
Gurley is reported to be very tall at 6'9, so it remains to be seen if Chandler will be made to look as tall as the guy he’s playing, or he’ll just be “regular tall” (Chandler is 6'1).
Other cast members who we don’t get to see much of—or at all—in the teaser are Hank Azaria (who plays Apple CEO Tim Cook), Elisabeth Shue, Babak Tafti, Kerry Bishé, and Mousa Hussein Kraish.
The series premieres on February 27.
35 Comments
is that first picture french stewart?
Ugh, I don’t care for that French Stewart guy. Swedish Stewart is much funnier, tbh.
Well bork my bork over here!
What about French-Canadian Stewart?
He will not shut up about poutine.
Maybe we should’ve let Zorin sink Silicon Valley after all.
Smart reference.
Judging by the Pearl Jam song throughout the trailer, I’m assuming this is a period piece set in ‘91?
Yeah, what a choice that was.
Pearl Jam? In my 2022? It’s more likely than you’d think.
I’m disappointed the still-gorgeous Elisabeth Shue isn’t in this trailer.
“ so it remains to be seen if Chandler will be made to look as tall as the guy he’s playing, or he’ll just be “regular tall” (Chandler is 6’1).”
No it doesn’t, there a shot of him standing next to Uma who’s 5’11” whos probably wearing heels and they look about the same height.
Mystery solved.
They should have cast British comedian Greg Davies, who’s 6’8. Can he do a Texan accent? Almost certainly not. Would it be hilarious to see him try? I think so.
As long as they work in this important backstory about the character’s misadventures with modern technology.
I love watching Greg Davies on ‘Would I Lie to You’, because no matter how bizarre the story there’s a very good chance it’s true.
Fuck the glorification of tech bros.
I wonder how much longer the celebrity visionary CEO thing is going to hold up. Most seem to have a good idea at best but then can’t bring themselves to hand off management to actual executives. I can count on one hand the number that actually grew their businesses into something with staying power. Meanwhile the crackpot failures are piling up.
As long as there’s one Musk for everyone to obsess over, they’ll continue to ignore all the Holmses and Kalanicks and Juicero boys
Hank Azaria (who plays Apple CEO Tim Cook)Casting the role of a gay man with a straight actor who was most recently in the news for doing an offensive Indian caricature for 30 years. Should be fine.
…you mean when he walked away from one of his signature jobs, apologized for the harm he caused while doing it, and in subsequent conversations doubled down on his desire to make amends for it?
There are actual bad people in Hollywood. Save your knives for them.
No beef with Azaria, he’s definitely on the right side of history on that. But if we’re going to talk about representation in the film, why give the role of the only out gay character to a straight male? It’s a missed opportunity.
I’m just gonna say it: white gay male actors are doing just fine. They are really and truly not hurting for roles. Andrew Rannells, Jonathan Groff, Dan Levy, NPH, Zachary Quinto, Jim Parsons, Ben Platt, Andrew Scott, Victor Garber, Matt Bomer, Ben Whishaw, Wentworth Miller, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, John Early…and that’s just who I came up with off the top of my head.
There are plenty of parts out there for these men, because at the end of the day even a gay white man is still a white man. I’m not gonna pretend Garber wouldn’t have done a great job in this part, but seriously: white gay male actors are doing just fine. The cause of media representation isn’t gonna cave in from this one lapse. There are other houses that are actually on fire.
Christ on a crutch, I had no idea that queer representation in media was okay now. Thanks so much for the clarification, everyone.
Really? Gay has to play gay now? Who the actor has sex with has to match who the subject does?It’s so silly.
your brain is totally twitter poisoned lmao Hank Azaria rules
It’s make believe. He can pretend to be gay.
Hell, if he put some burnt cork on his face, he could pretend to be black!
The problem with glorifying techbro assholes is it just encourages more of them.
Is this the new definition of a hate watch?
Shows like Super Pumped and The Dropout about main characters you can’t like, inventing something (or not) you can’t like, but with actors you can like.
Is 6’1″ considered tall?
Good cast, but like, who cares about this techbro douchebag (who I actually met once when we were at UCLA together)—Shit is that Kerry Bishé?? Now I have to watch this, god dammit.
Yeah, I got the gist of this (“dickhead causes problems at company by being a dickhead”) from the newspapers. I don’t see what’s particularly dramatic about it, so that you’d want to make a TV show about it. But I can guess from who’s making it that the show will think that there’s something inherently interesting about assholes with a lot of money and/or power giving little speeches about how rich and/or powerful they are.
I can’t wait for the movie/series about Valleywag.
Is it me, or is JGL starting to look a bit like Kevin Spacey? Which could come in handy for anyone wanting to cast a Kevin Spacey Type, seeing as they won’t be hiring the most obvious candidate.