'Humorless Politicians Are the Most Dangerous'

The Scottish-born television and film director Armando Iannucci is best known in the U.K. for the acclaimed BBC series The Thick of It, a farce set in the upper echelons of British government. Its success inspired his HBO series, Veep, which uses a similar approach—foulmouthed, cringe-inducing, relentlessly funny—to skewer Washington. For his new film, The Death of Stalin, Iannucci turns his attention to the Kremlin, satirizing the political struggle that followed Joseph Stalin’s demise. The movie opens in the United States this month, 65 years after the dictator died.

This interview has been shortened and edited for clarity.

Julia Ioffe: How did you decide to make a movie about the death of Stalin?

I was thinking of a fictional movie about a contemporary dictator, fantasizing about what might happen next in today’s world. But then this French company called Quad came with this graphic novel, , which was quite popular in France, based on true incidents. And they said, “We want to make this film, and we think it’d be right for you—are you interested?” IWhy bother with fiction when this true story is bizarre and funny and scary at the same time? I waited until I’d finished and then started making it. We shot it pre-Trump, but when I started showing it to people, they seemed to think it was some commentary on contemporary events.