When Mountainhead was announced as part of the 2025 movie schedule, it was the five big names attached to it that got me excited. Those names are Jesse Armstrong, the creator of Succession and writer/director of this movie, and the film’s four main actors, Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman, Ramy Youssef and Cory Michael Smith. All are stars in their own right, however, Schwartzman – a well-known and beloved actor – told me why he was intimidated to work with The Office star and co. and how he quickly moved past that feeling.
In the lead up to Mountainhead’s release – it will be available to those with an HBO Max subscription on May 31 – I spoke with Jason Schwartzman about working on this biting satire about four rich men coming together for a weekend in the mountains. While chatting about the ensemble, the Rushmore star told me this cast worked together seamlessly. However, at first he was intimidated, as he said:
I was definitely intimidated to work with Steve, who I love. Not only that, though, to work with Jesse and Cory and Ramy, and feel like, ‘Geez, I hope that I have time to get it together for these people. And I hope that I have enough time to get comfortable enough to not worry.
First of all, it’s kind of wild to hear an established actor like Jason Schwartzman say this about Carell. Plus, they were also both in Wes Anderson’s movieAsteroid City, which Schwartzman led. However, I get it. Steve Carell’s films and TV shows speak for themselves; he’s a legend, and to work so closely with him would probably be intimidating, in a great way, for any actor.
Plus, when you are also working with the man behind one of the best shows streaming on HBO Max, an incredibly successful stand-up comedian who is also a director, producer and writer, as well as an up-and-coming star, I’d imagine the pressure was on for all of them. Schwartzman told me he was nervous about making jokes and second-guessing what he was going to say, explaining:
In the beginning…I’m thinking to myself, everything I’m thinking maybe like a joke or something with Steve and these guys, I’m going, like, ‘Should I say that? Or should I not say that? Is that a good – is that gonna get a [laugh] ? I’m gonna hold that one back.’
However, he quickly moved past that. Carell, Youssef and Smith all proved to be incredibly supportive co-stars. And Schwartzman told me it didn’t take long for him to feel like he could try anything with them. As he said, he knew“these other three have my back.”
To that point, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes actor explained that there was a “super trust” between these guys. While he called it “cheesy,” I thought this comparison to throwing someone up into the air so they could do a flip was both fitting and sweet, as he explained:
That’s a pretty cool feeling, you know what I mean? Like, super trust in one another. [It’s] almost like, you know, throwing someone in the air and they do a flip, and just feeling like they’re gonna be there when I land. And I’ll be there for them. So it’s like, but that’s sounding cheesy. As a flipper and dancer, it’s the closest I’ve come to that feeling.
That’s so sweet, and I love that these powerhouses were able to come together and make this film that 100% relies on them to deliver remarkable performances of Armstrong’s smart script.
Mountainhead is about four ultra-rich men who work in tech who meet up for a poker weekend. However, they also spend the trip reckoning with the catastrophic impacts of their work, their own wealth, and their relationships with power and greed. All four actors seamlessly work together to pull off this story, in my opinion, which made it easy for me to understand the trust Jason Schwartzman described.
To see all this on screen for yourself, this movie will hit streaming on May 31 on HBO Max at 8 p.m. ET.
