‘Our world is combustible’: Kathryn Bigelow on AI, Andy Warhol and nuclear Armageddon

The record-breaking Oscar winner explains how her new film, A House of Dynamite – starring Idris Elba as the US president – is rooted in her cold war childhood and the urgent threats we all face today

Kathryn Bigelow has been thinking about death: hers, and mine, and yours as well. History will always remember her as the first woman to win a best director Oscar, which she did in 2010 for The Hurt Locker. But in her new film, A House of Dynamite, history may not have long to run. It is the story of a nuclear missile, launched at an American city. The rest is about what happens next. Bigelow would like you to consider Armageddon.

“Someone I know said the bomb for the audience is realising this is possible,” she says. She smiles. “I’m glad if people come away from the movie as concerned as I am.”