Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a Silicon Valley nightmare in the teaser trailer for Super Pumped
The anthology series about Uber premieres on February 27
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.