When Jeff Zucker was approached by Primetime filmmaker Lance Oppenheim to play “Jeff Zucker” in the new A24 movie, the real Zucker couldn’t resist.

“Primetime” stars Robert Pattinson as former “Dateline NBC” reporter Chris Hansen, whose segment on the newsmagazine executed sting operations designed to catch child predators. “To Catch a Predator” became a phenom, but it also led to controversy, which the film tackles.

I did not know anything about the project, but Lance Oppenheim, the director, went to college with my son. He was a year ahead of Andrew at Harvard, and they were friendly. They were talking about this film that Lance was directing, and he said, “Hey, I’m doing this film, and who should I get to play your father?” And my son Andrew said, “Well, why don’t you ask my father to do it?” Lance said, “Would he do it?” And Andrew said, “I don’t know. Ask him!” So Andrew connected us, and Lance explained what he was doing. I said, “OK, I’ll do it,” just as a lark.

He sent me the pages of my scene, and he was clear that this was, as they say, “inspired by true events.” The scene in which I play myself never happened. It’s obviously a fictional scene. He sent me those pages and they were fine, they portrayed me as ratings-driven network entertainment exec.

Doing this as a lark

I try not to take myself too seriously. It was a fun task, and I haven’t been given that many opportunities to do a scene in a film opposite Robert Pattinson, so I figured, why not? Let’s have fun. I don’t know if you recall, back in the day when I was running NBC Entertainment, I did the show “Fat Actress” with Kirstie Alley?

I was in a bathtub with Kirstie Alley, and I did “My Name Is Earl.” So I acted in those shows. In “Fat Actress,” I played myself as well. So I had done a couple TV appearances. But I had never done a film, and I thought, why not? Let’s have fun. And that’s really how it all came about.

SAG Card

That’s a really good question. The answer is yes. I had my SAG card from way back when, and I’ve paid my annual dues for probably 25 or 26 years now.

Primetime takes place in 2006

That’s a good point. I don’t think we ever really thought about how old the character was at the time. They reconstructed my NBC Entertainment office, and I have to say they did a pretty good job. They did it with pictures from that time, and they dressed me in suit from that era. A big boxy, broad-shoulder tan suit. It was kind of funny to walk back in time like that. I don’t think we ever really thought about the fact that I was playing somebody 20 years younger because I don’t think that anybody ever really cared what the age of that character.

That scheduling board was really true to form. They really nailed it, definitely got that right. The scene never happened in real life, but the scheduling board is absolutely real.  The names of the shows at the time.

They really wanted to get this right

They took that from pictures of the time, which is kind of funny. I guess I kind of remember taking photos in front of that board.

I wasn’t running NBC Entertainment in 2006. It reported to me. I ran NBC Entertainment from 2001 to 2005, and then I came back to New York to run the entire television group. So entertainment still reported to me, but I wasn’t running day-to day entertainment at the time.

Taking some liberties

That’s why I said, the scene never happened, but you know, “inspired by true events” is certainly fair enough.

Did you give any notes?

They were very receptive. They allowed me to improvise a little bit at the scheduling board. We tried it a couple different ways. I don’t want to diminish in any way the importance of the topic here, and this is obviously a serious topic within the movie.

Chris Hansen has been very vocal 

I think that Chris will appreciate the way Robert Pattinson plays him, and I think he’ll know that this is not meant to be factual documentation of what happened, but certainly is representative of that era and the show. Chris will recognize that he was doing a lot of important work back then with these investigations.

I have a new moniker now. Everybody calls me “Primetime,” right? I was shocked at the number of people that saw the trailer and reached out. It’s been incredibly amusing to see the reaction. I think people are getting a real kick out of it. Honestly, I’m in the film for 75 or 90 seconds. But because of the key line where I’m giving the title of the film, I’m in the trailer. So it generated a lot of attention that I hadn’t expected.

Campaigning for the film?

I will not. I will be a guest and enjoying the experience. I’ve never been to the Venice Festival. I didn’t ever really expect to go, and so when this came up, I said, how can I say no?

Who would you have recommended to to play “Jeff Zucker”?

I assume Jacob Elordi probably wasn’t available, right?