Charlie Brooker - Inside Black Mirror

I find it very difficult to figure out whether I’m really being sincere. We’re told we should have fixed characters, and that having one is somehow an important quality in people. But I’m not sure I do have a fixed character. I mean, I’m not a murderer… but put me in front of a Nazi, with a rifle, and that Nazi’s trying to kill me, and I’ll murder him. So our characters are formed by the circumstances in which we find ourselves. And so when Lacie and Naomi have that first video chat, for instance, they are both being totally sincere.

Annabel Jones:You do want Lacie’s mission to reach Naomi’s wedding to feel sincere. People want to have some validity to their childhood and feel that these things were formative. But the reality is that lives have changed and that’s probably an upsetting truth. You hanker to get it back.

Charlie Brooker:I remember having that conversation with Rashida and Mike at one point: why does Lacie think she’s going to the wedding? Does she feel great about going to her childhood friend, or is it a transaction? And I think it’s both. She’s genuinely touched that Naomi has asked her to do it, but she also can’t escape the excitement of it being her ticket to a new apartment.

Bryce Dallas Howard:I think that Lacie and Naomi sincerely… need each other. They are sincerely using each other.

Joe Wright:It was Bryce’s birthday on the day I flung her into a muddy swamp. And so when I called cut, and she stood up out of the swamp, covered in mud, we all sang happy birthday. Bless her.

Bryce Dallas Howard:Happy birthday to me! They sang really, really well. The best part was when we broke for lunch. I was getting back into the swamp after lunch, and there was no way for me to change clothes. So I was just walking around like this total swamp thing. Some merciful individual gave me a wet-wipe for my hands.

When Lacie finally reaches Naomi’s wedding, she grabs the microphone and inflicts a lengthy, deranged speech upon the beautiful people.

Joe Wright:Lacie’s speech wasn’t shot in that many takes. We spent a couple of days shooting that scene, which was very generous given the overall schedule. Coming from film budgets and schedules, a 20-day shoot was fast for one hour. Atonement was 64 days, so in terms of an exercise in economy Nosedive was really useful for me as a filmmaker.

James Foster:We wanted each environment to reflect a level of rating; the wedding was the highest level and needed to appear hyper-perfect. The reception was to be outside on the lawns of a luxurious family home in an exclusive private development. Everything had to be white, pink and green.

Joe Wright:The wedding looks horrible. The nicer it looks, the more horrific it is, to me anyway. I’d been to a wedding a few months prior to that, and Nosedive reminded me. So I replicated that wedding I’d been to.

Joel Collins:That wedding was a nightmare to do, and a brilliant bit of work on the set decorator Katie Spencer’s part. I remember Joe telling her, “I’ve got a gift for you, and it’s the gift of a wedding to decorate!” She was like, “Oh. My. God.”, because she knew exactly what that meant.

Bryce Dallas Howard:The wedding speech went smoothly and was tons of fun, but we had a potential problem. I have really sensitive eyes, which is so annoying for everyone I work with, and on the wedding set there was this crazy vortex of bright sunlight! I told Joe I wasn’t sure if I could do the scene without squinting. But no joke: a cloud appeared for the entire time I was doing my speech and blocked the sun! Oh my gosh, I was so grateful.

Charlie Brooker:Lacie was designed to be quite grating at the start of the film, but we’d put in a key moment. During the taxi scene when she’s really shrieking, we have the driver groaning at her. This tells you, the viewer, that we know she’s a bit much. But by the time she delivers this whole wedding speech, it feels really triumphant. You’re really on her side, because she’s snapped and screaming at everyone.

Joe Wright:I think Lacie is a likeable character. She’s vulnerable and she wants to be loved, and most of us can identify with that.

In the final scene, Lacie has been locked up in a cell, opposite another detainee. The pair begin to trade insults.

Mike Schur:In Charlie’s original outline, Lacie’s big blow-up at her work presentation went viral and she accidentally achieved the status and fame she’d been craving. When I brought up that it reminded me of the end of Fifteen Million Merits , Charlie laughed and agreed. The four of us then worked out the new idea – I think the actual idea was mostly Charlie’s – wherein Lacie managed to find freedom in being stripped of her device in jail, and that there was a small amount of optimism in the idea that we all might be able to reset – if, admittedly, someone kind of forces us to.

Joe Wright:Lacie and her fellow prisoner fall in love. They reveal their true selves. When he says, “Fuck you”, and she says, “Fuck you next Tuesday”, she means it. Then they both end up shouting “Fuck you” and they become one. They’re gonna have sex as soon as they leave.

Charlie Brooker:So they’d be having sex on the pavement. It’s really nice, that moment, because it goes from grumpy to annoyed to playful to flirty. They’re both genuinely smiling in the final few frames.

Annabel Jones:Lacie hasn’t been able to compete with Naomi before, in terms of body size and all of that, and suddenly she’s in her element: “Let me charm you with how offensive I can be when I’m totally liberated.” I think the two of them will end up together too, that’s the whole idea. It’s like they’re having a competition of who can offend who the most…

Charlie Brooker: …which is the starting point for all sexual encounters.

Bryce Dallas Howard:I think that moment is about euphoria and freedom. They share this connection of authenticity, almost like a religious, transcendent moment. Both of them realise that they can just be free. While that’s obviously dramatic irony, given that they’re in prison, they’ve been freed of expectations and judgement. But what Joe said about the sex is also true.