Charlie Brooker On Technology Developments, AI, And Why “Black Mirror” Still Mixes New Talent With Big Stars
Black Mirror is basically a British institution now, since it first launched back in 2011
Charlie Brooker: 250 years ago
Haha, so much has changed since then, and so much has changed in tech. Technology is such an integral part of the series. Has there ever been a moment where you’ve had an idea that seemed quite far-fetched at the time, but then you read about it and you’re like “wait a minute”?
Both: Yeah, haha
Charlie: Yes, and there’s even an idea which I keep picking away at that I want to do but I haven’t done yet, and I keep slightly worrying, “Will this look like a retrospective documentary by the time we do it?” Quite often we’ve done episodes that I think, “Oh that’s a long way away from happening,” and then like two weeks later, suddenly something happens. Last season, we did an episode, Joan is Awful, which was about a sort of AI-generated video, on some level, and I don’t think that at that point, I’d quite seen how quickly it would get like photorealistic.
Jessica Rhoades: But we did know we had to do it last season.
Charlie: We knew that we had to get this out quickly
Jessica: You’re always deciding because Charlie has so many ideas, and towards the end of the season, he’s writing as we’re shooting. So, at the end of the season, it is the first time that you are kind of both looking at the season you have and then, hopefully – touch wood – projecting the season in the future. So every once in a while, at the end of the season, he’s like “this idea or this idea?” and I think Joan was one where we were like we better go now because next season might be too late.
Charlie: And this season… I suspect Common People, I suspect the tech in that will be sooner than – even though it’s quite far fetched, I suspect the tech is probably happening and about to be launched.
Have you ever thought that one of your episodes has potentially inspired tech?
Charlie: Well, occasionally, I know that it has.
Jessica: A few people are trying to sell something right now that I think is pretty Charlie Brooker.
Charlie: Yes, well I’ve seen somebody who – this was a couple years ago now – when somebody was doing a sort of AI like chatbot for grieving people, and they said in some interview, “I watched Be Right Back episode of Black Mirror and thought that looks like a good idea” and I thought, “I don’t think that in the episode we show that necessarily benign a good idea” there’s certainly a nuance to that. I can see if somebody’s grieving and they derive comfort from something, I don’t want to judge them, but equally, there are potential downsides there.
They probably only watched up until halfway and thought to ignore the lessons…
Charlie: They switched it off! They turned it off halfway through to work on their business plan
Before anything went wrong, they were like: “Okay, got that idea.”
Charlie: Haha, bastards monetising my content!
Back when the show first launched in 2011, we used to see a lot of new faces, brand new actors were being brought to the screen; fast forward to now, we’re getting a lot of household names. Now, when you’re writing episodes or start casting, do you already have names in mind, or are you still casting like you were originally?
Charlie: Sometimes it’s a mix. I mean, honestly, when you’re writing, you kind of cast people in your head because it helps you to write. They often aren’t the person, but sometimes, occasionally, they have been the person who’s actually in the episode.
I think we’ve got a real mix because we’ve got some really big stars this season, and they’re there because they’re fucking great actors, but we’ve also got some people who are possibly less well known, who are emerging talents. I think that’s also a very important bit to the show’s DNA that I think sometimes gets somewhat overlooked. I hear people saying, “Oh, it’s all celebrities now” well no, fuck off, no it isn’t. We’ve got loads of actors that people aren’t aware of yet, but will be tomorrow.
I think there’s a good mix!
Charlie: I think there’s a good mix. I’m glad you’ve said that. I got defensive and angry about it for no reason.
I’ll back you in the comments! It’s a fantastic mix and Black Mirror has always done quite well to bring out great new talent that you end up seeing on screen for years after; it’s an attribute to the show. However, bringing in the big names sometimes matches the themes, like in Hotel Reverie, it makes sense to have big names like Emma Corrin because of what it represents.
Jessica: Well, thank you !
Charlie: Thank you for that!
