The biggest movie in the country right now is about a civil war — in
America.

If you see the film “Civil War” at a theater in downtown Washington, the
scenes of the Lincoln Memorial exploding and the White House being
attacked are jarring when you exit into the D.C. air. 

The movie is writer and director Alex Garland’s very in-your-face
attempt to imagine the unimaginable in America — an authoritarian leader
in the White House, intractable political differences being resolved
through violence and the very specific horrors of modern warfare — urban
fighting, refugee camps, mass atrocities, the collapse of the currency —
all the things that we associate with stuff that can happen over there
happening right here in the United States.

“Civil War” is also a movie about journalism.

It follows four reporters traveling from New York to Washington, D.C.,
via a circuitous route through Pennsylvania, West Virginia and
Virginia. 

The movie takes on a lot of the weighty issues we talk about on shows
like this one: media ethics, political polarization, disinformation
polluting our media ecosystem and the potential threat from an
autocratic leader.

Wagner Moura plays a hardened war correspondent addicted to the
battlefield. He also provides some much needed levity in the movie.

Moura is best-known for his role as Pablo Escobar in “Narcos.” But he’s
also a former journalist, a political activist and a writer and director
himself. His 2019 movie “Marighella” about the coup and
counter-revolution in Brazil in the 1960s incurred the wrath of
then-president Jair Bolsonaro in Moura’s home country of Brazil. 

Deep Dive host and Playbook co-author Ryan Lizza talked with Moura on
Thursday just as Washington’s annual White House Correspondents’
Association Dinner festivities were getting under way. It’s the time of
year when the relationship between journalists, politicians and
Hollywood is at its peak in this town. 

They had a fascinating conversation about how making a movie about a new
civil war changed Moura’s own personal thinking about politics, how his
experience with Bolsonaro in Brazil is a warning for Americans and the
role of art in politics.

Ryan Lizza is a Playbook co-author for POLITICO.
Wagner Moura is a star of A24's film "Civil War".
Kara Tabor is a producer for POLITICO audio. 
Alex Keeney is a senior producer for POLITICO audio.