Kathryn Bigelow on ‘A House of Dynamite’ and the nuclear ‘elephant in the room’

Kathryn Bigelow has been thinking about the threat of nuclear war ever since she was a kid. “I come from the era of duck and cover,” she says, “where when I was very little, we had to hide under the desk in the event of an atomic bomb blast.”Over the last 40 years, she’s been directing tightly-paced thrillers such as “The Hurt Locker” (which won her the Academy Award for best director) and “Zero Dark Thirty.” Her latest film, “A House of Dynamite,” takes on a question that has been on her mind for decades: What would happen if the U.S. were targeted by a nuclear missile? The film, which is out on Netflix, has struck a nerve with audiences, becoming the streamer’s most-watched movie in the world and igniting conversation about the accuracy of its depiction of the U.S. missile defense system. Today on Post Reports, Elahe Izadi speaks with Kathryn Bigelow and with the film’s screenwriter, Noah Oppenheim, about why they chose to make this film in this moment, and about how they responded when they saw news that the U.S. could restart nuclear testing for the first time in decades. Today’s show was produced by Peter Bresnan and Josh Carroll, with help from Emma Talkoff. It was edited by Reena Flores and mixed by Sean Carter. Subscribe to The Washington Post here. And watch us on YouTube here.