Cracking Black Mirror
As Black Mirror returns, creator Charlie Brooker and exec producer Jessica Rhoades reveal the creative process behind Netflix’s mind-bending anthology while stars Emma Corrin, Sienna Kelly, Rosy McEwen, Lewis Gribben and Josh Finan offer insights into their unsettling and thought-provoking episodes.
When Charlie Brooker began work on season six of Black Mirror, his darkly satirical anthology series that explores the relationship between humans and futuristic technology, his initial idea was to create a number of horror stories under a new banner – Red Mirror.
However, he decided to change tack when he imagined Joan is Awful, the story of a woman who discovers her life has been adapted as a high-end drama series by fictional streamer Streamberry. Consequently, Demon 79 was the only Red Mirror entry in S6.
Now, with S7 launching on Netflix yesterday, it appears that episode will remain an outlier, as Brooker has delivered six new tech-related stories that he tells DQ are unapologetically “OG Black Mirror.”
“All the episodes this season have some kind of tech McGuffin at the heart of them that could either upend, ruin or enhance somebody’s life in some way. Certainly that was my guiding principle going into it,” he says. “Other than that, I don’t tend to sit down and go, ‘This is the season where I’m talking about AI,’ or whatever. Naturally those things come up.”
As has become customary with every season of Black Mirror, which originally launched on the UK’s Channel 4 back in 2011, Brooker’s brand of speculative fiction has often haunting, surprising and unpredictable resonance with contemporary society, even if the exact technologies depicted in the show don’t exist yet.
One example is the new season’s first episode, Common People, in which working-class couple Amanda (Rashida Jones) and Mike (Chris O’Dowd) sign up for a high-tech system that will keep Amanda alive after a medical emergency – but the ever-changing subscription model has far-reaching consequences for them both.
“Quite often, I’ll have a germ of an idea and I’ll be saying to Jessica [Rhoades, executive producer] for quite a long time that ‘I know I want to do a story about this or it’s got this… this is the sort of setup but I don’t know what the story is yet,’ and quite often two of those suddenly connect in a way that you think, ‘Oh, it’s blindingly obvious. Why didn’t I think of combining those two before?’” Brooker says.
“Then usually the point at which you know, ‘Oh that’s a Black Mirror story,’ is there’s a moment that’s going to be spooky or weird or the character is going to be in a really unique dilemma, or sometimes you see the final shot in some way, and that’s when you know. I get all excited and go, ‘I’ve got to write it now.’”
“It’s the most amazing thing,” says Rhoades. “Often times, the script comes through and it 100% will punch you in the gut at the end and you’re like, ‘That’s a Black Mirror.’ But we’ve had a few also where I saw exactly where it was going, but it wasn’t until we added a piece – a specific piece of casting was added, or specific music – that something clicked, and all of a sudden it gives you the feeling that, to me, is a Black Mirror.”
Domino Day star Siena Kelly was certainly surprised to find out she had landed a role in season seven’s second episode, Béte Noire, having previously been unaware what job her self-taped audition was actually for.
Then when she did find out it was for Black Mirror, “I was like, ‘I’m not gonna get cast. This is a waste of my time,’” she admits. “I did one take and sent it and then got called into another round [of auditions]. I met the team, and that’s when I got the script, and it was really fun. I loved the journey that [my character] Maria goes on, I loved the ending and I love the reveal. Obviously I really wanted it, but I really did think the odds were extremely low. They had Salma Hayek last year.”
Kelly was then asked to do a chemistry test with co-star Rosy McEwen, unaware she had already been cast as Maria, a development executive at a chocolate company who is suddenly confronted with Verity (McEwen), an old school friend who seems to be acting very strangely, yet no one else has noticed.
“I actually did get the script first,” says McEwen. “I didn’t know it was Black Mirror, but I could put two and two together and I just loved the role. I wanted to do Verity so badly.”
With just 49 minutes of running time to depict Maria and Verity reuniting and then their relationship turning extremely sour, Kelly and McEwen faced the challenge of condensing their character development to ensure there is a truth to their toxic relationship before arriving at a grand finale that turns this workplace drama on its head.
“Me and Rosy were trying to be really good, studious actors, doing all this script work,” Kelly recalls. “And then Charlie gave us a note that really freed us up in rehearsals and just said, ‘They’re just really petty.’ Then I felt like we didn’t bother finding a reason for any of their behaviour. Pettiness doesn’t make sense. It’s just a knee-jerk reaction, from my experience of it.”
“We could just be a bit nuts and do whatever we wanted after that,” McEwen adds, “and not try to make sense of it.”
Meanwhile, The Crown’s Emma Corrin stars opposite Issa Rae in certainly the most elegant and beautifully designed episode of S7, Hotel Reverie. Rae plays Hollywood A-lister Brandy Friday, who agrees to take part in the remake of a classic Casablanca-style movie, the titular Hotel Reverie.
But this isn’t just another remake. Using a new immersive AI technology called Redream, Brandy is implanted into the movie to play gender-swapped hero Alex Palmer opposite Corrin’s actor Dorothy Chambers, who plays Alex’s on-screen love interest Clara. Sticking to the script proves harder than Brandy thought, as technical difficulties lead Brandy and Dorothy to embark on a real-life romance.
Scheduling difficulties meant Corrin initially thought they weren’t going to be able to play Dorothy, but when another project was delayed, they took advantage of the “amazing coincidence” to take up the role.
“I remember reading the script and just devouring it,” Corrin says. “I thought it was extraordinary. Black Mirror is always original, but I thought it was a really beautiful part of this [story], which at its core is a love story. AI always takes the back seat. I was waiting for it to get stressful and disturbing, and actually it was just very heartbreaking.”
Describing Dorothy as “so beautifully realised on the page,” Corrin didn’t feel the need to draw inspiration from any real-life figures or do masses of research, instead using the project as an excuse to dive into old Hollywood films, “which I love anyway. Then we rehearsed for a week beforehand, which was really cool and meant me and Issa got to know each other really well.”
Corrin hadn’t ever played a character quite like Dorothy – or, by extension, Clara – and Hotel Reverie offered them the chance to do an “amazing” classical British accent and deliver a performance reflective of the film’s 1940s style.
But though the AI concept in Hotel Reverie isn’t likely to land in Hollywood anytime soon, the actor is no fan of the way technology is beginning to shape the creative arts. “I really hope it doesn’t end up being used in the ways we fear it will be,” Corrin says. “I think it would be a real loss and I don’t really feel like it’s necessary. What we have, people in a room creating something, people’s likenesses being secured and people’s jobs being safe, I don’t think that’s a lot to ask for and I hope that doesn’t change.”
Should they be offered the chance to return to Black Mirror in the future, Corrin wouldn’t hesitate: “I’d do anything for Charlie Brooker.”
The show is known for its Easter eggs that link various episodes and characters, creating the impression of a Black Mirror universe. But S7 marks the first time Brooker has specifically revisited previous instalments, most prominently with USS Callister: Into Infinity, a feature-length sequel to S4’s Star Trek-inspired standout USS Callister.
“To be honest, from the point when the credits rolled on the first one, I was already thinking ‘These characters are fun. I really like these characters, the cast is great,’ and it felt like the first story ended at the start of a new chapter, so it was always one that made sense to revisit,” Brooker says.
Coming more than seven years after USS Callister debuted in December 2017, “it’s been partly cracking what that story is and getting everyone’s schedules to align, which was in itself a heck of an achievement,” he adds.
S7’s Plaything also revisits a previous episode, being set in the same 1990s world as the innovative 2018 interactive film Bandersnatch. Will Poulter reprises his role as acclaimed games developer Colin Ritman and Asim Chaudhry returns as Mohan Thakur, owner of software company Tuckersoft.
Here, they are largely background characters to eccentric loner Cameron, who becomes obsessed with Colin’s latest work, a Tamagotchi-style game called Thronglets where he raises and communicates with the ever-growing Throng of small yellow animated creatures. Years later, when Cameron is arrested over a grisly cold case, his revelations could have a lasting impact on humankind.
Unlike USS Callister: Into Infinity, Plaything isn’t a sequel to Bandersnatch. “It’s definitely got its own story and it’s got roots in my video gaming obsessions,” says Brooker, a former games reviewer. “While writing it, I realised, ‘Oh, there’s a point at which you’re going to meet this programmer. Oh, hang on a minute, one of my favourite characters I ever created was Colin Ritman. Could we…? And if we get him [Poulter], could we get Asim as well?’ So that came about that way around. It’s not a sequel, even though those characters walk in like human Easter eggs.”
As young Cameron, Lewis Gribben (Somewhere Boy) admits filming the episode was “intimidating,” thanks not only to the fact he was a fan of the show but also to the short time they had to complete production under Bandersnatch director David Slade.
What helped him was the fact his 1990s segments were filmed first, meaning his performance informed the way former Doctor Who star Peter Capaldi would later step in to play older Cameron for the present-day scenes.
“We met during the readthrough and a little bit in rehearsals. He just took from me,” Gribben says. “David and Peter thought it would be a good idea for Peter to study my voice, the way I walked and talked, so he could incorporate that into Cameron when he’s older. He was very nice – we have each other’s numbers – and he’s just a very lovely man, and very professional, very talented. But I was so thankful the way it worked out, where I could just do it my way and he could take from me. He has all the reflective big, wordy monologue scenes where I’m like, ‘Oh God, I would have struggled to remember those.’”
Playing a smaller but particularly impactful role in the episode is The Responder star Josh Finan, who plays Lump, a drug-dealing friend of young Cameron whose decision to interact with the Thronglets proves to be fateful for them both.
“I just thought it would be fun,” he says. “Charlie’s a clever enough writer that even those parts that pop in and pop out again feel like they have a whole life, which is always what I’m on the lookout for. I was excited to use my own accent and walk like me and not really be too conscious of having a ‘character’ to really try to portray. For better or worse, there is a lot of myself in that character.”
On set, the actors didn’t have to imagine what the Thronglets might look like, as they were able to interact with the animation – just as viewers can after Netflix released the game for real.
“Having them there was a great asset because, if there was just a blank, it would have been a bit like you’re responding to nothing,” Gribben says. “They’re made up but they felt like a character in their own right. You could feel something for them. For Cameron, when he’s young, he really likes and cares for them and really loves them as friends. They’re like his own children in a way, so it made it easy. You had something to emotionally connect yourself with.”
One scene calls for Cameron and Lump to take lumps out of each other in a scrappy fist fight, a moment that came after a couple of days’ rehearsal and preparations with a fight choreographer. “We like working with each other anyway so when we get to those scenes, you’ve got a good mix of feeling very free to go for it, but safely,” Finan says.
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“It must have looked real enough and messy enough, but still contained within the choreography,” Gribben adds. “We had two stunt guys who were great and professional, but they never got used. They just liked what we did. I guess that’s a compliment, in a way.”
Gribben shares Corrin’s concerns over the creeping use of AI in film and television, particularly after the revelation earlier this year that technology was used to enhance Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones’s Hungarian accents in The Brutalist.
“Sometimes it’s difficult to do accents that are not in your wheelhouse, but the whole craft of acting is to try to learn and, even though you fail, you take from it,” he says. “I’d rather people just try and fail, and that’s the beauty of art, right? Some performances are going to be brilliant, some aren’t, but they are still their own. Anything that’s taken from a computer into acting is a big no-no, in my opinion.”
With two years between seasons six and seven, fans of Black Mirror might be in for another wait to see what Brooker can dream up next. But he’s in no hurry to bring the show to an end.
“It’s a great job, let’s face it. I’m extremely fortunate to have this job so I’d be an idiot to want to give it up,” he says. “As long as new ideas keep occurring to me and as long as people keep wanting to watch it, I’ll do it in some form or another.”
Yet as the real world technology continues to advance, Black Mirror will always come back to the humanity behind it and its impact on the people who use it. “The inspiration comes from walking around in the world and being assailed by reality,” he adds. “It’s harder to live as a human being, easier as a writer. That’s the trade-off.”
tagged in: Black Mirror, Charlie Brooker, Emma Corrin, Jessica Rhoades, Josh Finan, Lewis Gribben, Netflix, Rosy McEwen, Sienna Kelly