Anatoly Dyatlov

Anatoly Dyatlov is deputy chief engineer at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, overseeing a delayed safety test on the night everything goes wrong. Impatient and status-obsessed, he bullies the younger operators running the reactor, brushes off their hesitations, and insists the test continue on schedule, certain his experience outweighs their unease.

Paul Ritter plays certainty as a weapon, all clipped authority and contempt for anyone who hesitates, so that his confidence curdles into horror in real time as the room around him falls apart. The writing never lets him become a cartoon villain; it just keeps giving him one more chance to be wrong, and watching him take it is unbearable.