Dan Stevens Opens Up about Discovering 'Terrifying' Grindr

Actor Dan Stevens features in two upcoming films, and one of them is a dramatization of how a popular dating app came to be.

The other has him getting up close and personal with screen icon Robert De Niro.

Variety got the details from Stevens, who told Marc Malkin all about the roles for the magazine's "Just for Variety" podcast.

Malkin quizzed Stevens about his participation in a film "about the creation of the Bumble dating app" – a movie Malkin thought was called "Swiped," but which Stevens was certain had been retitled.

"Lily James plays Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe Herd," Malkin noted, "and you play her investor Andrey Andreev."

Stevens verified that, saying that research material for James' part was readily available – "there's quite a bit of tape out there and a lot of references and stuff of Whitney" – but, he added, "Not so much of Andrey.

"There's very few," Steven added, "but there are a few interviews and various conferences that he spoke at. So I was able to study those and get the accent and that kind of thing, which was fun."

Stevens said apps like Bumble "came along after my time," but shared that "I know some people who are very actively into it, shall we say.

"That in itself is a very interesting sort of phenomenon," Stevens said. "A friend of mine calls it Candy Crush for Humans."

Malkin inquired about the research Stevens might have done in order to get a handle on what dating apps are – strictly for the purposes of verity in the movie, of course.

"I should have done that," Stevens mused. "That could have been really fun. But then it might have caused all sorts of problems.

"I've had friends who've shown me apps," the actor went on to add. "I remember a friend who showed me the early days of Grindr.... we were in the basement of a Broadway theater – he showed me, and he was like, 'Well, this guy is 750 feet away.' I was like, 'What are you talking about?'

"And it was just like all these little dots of all these horny gay men sort of circling us," Stevens recounted. "So I was like, 'Oh my God, this is terrifying.'"

Malkin begged to differ, offering the thought that gay men are "looking for love".

"They might be horny," Stevens retorted. "We don't know."

Good point.

The other film the two discussed – which apparently does have a title that's been settled on – is "Zero Day," starring De Niro as a former president named Mullen, Joan Allen as his wife, and Angela Bassett as the current president. In that film, Stevens' character, a pundit named Evan Green, finds himself in close quarters with Mullen when the former president grills him following a massive cyber attack.

Stevens called his onscreen close encounter with De Niro "kind of thrilling," but, he added, "it was like, 'Oh, OK, I'm a little bit intimidated here.'"

Looking for real-world resonances, Malkin asked, "Are Robert De Niro and Joan Allen the Clintons, and is Angela Bassett Kamala Harris?"

Stevens brushed that aside, and added that, though some have suggested it – including Malkin, during the interview – his character, Green, "is not Tucker Carlson. No."

Stevens went on add that audiences of "Zero Day" would probably "look for comparisons.... Oh, is that Tucker Carlson? Is it Ben Shapiro? It's none of those people. It's all of them. We're in a parallel universe with this story, and sure, there are reflections on certain administrations that you can look for, and comparisons are going to be plenty."

Asked about another polarizing public figure, Stevens reckoned that he might not find the time to attend a White House screening of the film were the current real-life president to invite him.

"Listen, I'm a busy guy," Stevens said. "It's probably not going to fit in the calendar, unfortunately."