Zelenskiy Book Shows Ukraine War Leader at His Best & Worst: Showman Review

As The Showman opens, Volodymyr Zelenskiy is still a celebrity comedian and upstart presidential candidate. “On the night we first met, backstage at his show in spring 2019, Zelenskiy looked more scared than I would see him for a while,” writes author and Time correspondent Simon Shuster.

What chilled the soon-to-be president of Ukraine wasn’t the bomb threat that was called in mere hours before his performance. It was the prospect of losing the thrill of the stage if he did, in fact, win the election. “His friends would later tell me about his addiction to the applause, the adulation,” Shuster writes. “None of that would follow him into the presidency.”