Charlie Brooker - Inside Black Mirror

Charlie Brooker:Alexander O’Neal’s song Fake actually ended up being more fitting, because What Have You Done for Me Lately had nothing to do with the story. Whereas with Fake , they were in an artificial world, so it had this additional layer. And luckily the song had exactly the same tempo, so their dance moves would still match.

Gugu Mbatha-Raw:We had so much fun! Kelly’s shoulder pads, and that rhythmic shoulder thing, were totally stolen from Janet. In terms of style, I definitely took inspiration from other artists like Prince and Whitney Houston. For me, it was a great chance to be goofy and expressive. I’d come off some quite intense movie roles, so it was nice to do something playful and not take it all so seriously. The dancing was a big part of that: it was all about expressing and celebrating Kelly’s life.

Mackenzie Davis:I was instructed to try to follow along with Gugu’s amazing Janet Jackson homage and fail awkwardly… which I did with ease!

Halfway through San Junipero , a throwaway comment from Kelly’s fling Wes suggests that all is not as it appears in the tropical playground. Charlie worked hard to ensure the film’s secrets gradually unveiled themselves.

Charlie Brooker:I usually have to write quickly, but there wasn’t an urgent deadline on this one. One reason why this script came out so fast, was that I was constantly operating under a load of restrictions dictated by the twist. Writing a script like that is like being forced to come up with dialogue that rhymes, because it’s got to do two different things at once. It’s got to sound like two people talking, like they might in an 80s movie nightclub scene, but it’s also got to make sense as stuff that old people in a simulation might say and do. So instead of wondering what to do next, you have a constant little problem to solve. I had to get these two women to meet and fall in love, while constantly distracting the viewer from this thing in the corner of the room.

Annabel Jones: San Junipero is a very different film when you watch it the second time round. In the edit, we primed ourselves to wonder whether any line of dialogue might give too much away. Did it nod too much to the fact that these are 70-year-old women? And at the same time, you’re trying to intrigue by adding little clues.

Charlie Brooker:I thought we gave some huge clues, but people generally didn’t pick up on them! There’s a moment in Tucker’s when the guy shows Yorkie this arcade driving game, and a car crashes on the screen. She has this horrible visceral reaction, because it reminds her of the car crash that paralysed her. Once you know what’s going on, it makes perfect sense. We even put the noise of a car crash on the soundtrack, so I thought people would immediately go, “Oh, she’s been in a car crash in real life.” But no-one ever picks up on it, until maybe a third viewing.

Yorkie runs away from the dance floor because she’s overwhelmed by her new reality, in which she can walk. Everything’s new to her. Which is stuff you don’t need to register, but it makes sense on a third viewing. The other big clue was playing The Smiths’ Girlfriend in a Coma over a shot of Yorkie. You see, I seem to think that viewers are writing all these small details down! But they’re not. People only notice when a plot doesn’t make sense. It’s good to give the audience a chance to get it, though, because otherwise it might feel like a complete cheat.

In 1996, Yorkie is seen standing near an arcade game called Time Crisis. That was my little video games joke, because at that point you think they’re travelling through time. There’s also House of the Dead further into the future. Of course a ‘house of the dead’ is essentially what San Junipero itself is.

During the shoot, an unexpected debate arose: would it rain in a digitally simulated resort like San Junipero.

Owen Harris:Charlie wasn’t sure about the logic of rain, but I couldn’t imagine the alleyway scene outside Tucker’s without it, so I clung on to it like a dog with a bone.

Charlie Brooker:It can be quite embarrassing, because I was so Taliban about that. San Junipero is an idealised version of somewhere, so why would they make it rain? As I kept saying again and again and again, the weather would be sunny all the time. Owen kept giving me all these explanations, like you might want to feel rain, and the more he said them the more I dug my heels in.

Owen Harris:I like the fact that Charlie has pretty hard and fast rules when it comes to logic. It means his ideas aren’t about having a fun notion: they really have to stack up, and that’s a big part of Black Mirror ’s success. He and Annabel are pretty rigorous, so if you have an idea that is maybe more emotive than logical, you have to come with a pretty strong case. But I wanted rain. It was so 80s, sexy and seductive, and it briefly traps the girls, forcing them to have the conversation.

Charlie Brooker:Owen dug his heels in too, and was adamant that it would be fine, so I reluctantly gave in. And he was right, which is sort of annoying! Now, the problem is that having done that, people know that every so often I can be defeated on the Taliban front.

Owen Harris:I’m so glad I persuaded Charlie, especially because later in the shoot it started to rain for real, straight after Kelly’s accident. The timing of the rain was bizarrely perfect, but it would have been a disaster if we hadn’t agreed on the logic of rain in the first place!

Shooting in Cape Town and London gave us the best looks for the film, but it was a logistical nightmare. We finished shooting in London on a Wednesday, flew to South Africa that night, landed Thursday and started shooting again on Friday, with next to no prep-time. We just kept going. You get a sense you are shooting something good and it propels you forward.

I still don’t know how we managed that 15-day shoot. You’re constantly on the edge of not getting what you need. Probably the biggest reason we survived, on top of everyone’s great skill and hard work, was the fact that the actors trusted me enough to move on after just a couple of takes, if I felt we’d got what we needed. Of course there were scenes that needed a bit more finding, and we never left a scene unless we were all satisfied, but it can be unnerving for an actor to plan and think about a scene for so long, and then it’s all over in a blink. But that’s what we did. And it allowed us to create a piece of filmic proportions in a fraction of the time.

Gugu Mbatha-Raw:I feel like shoots are always like that! I’ve never had a particularly luxurious shoot schedule, so I was used to working quickly. Most times during those night shoots, we were out in Cape Town at four in the morning, so you do have to get into the spirit of it. Plus, I try not to be one of those whiny actors who ask for another take! Unless you genuinely think you need to try something different, ultimately you have to trust the director. I did trust Owen, having seen his previous work. So my biggest challenge was to stay in the moment and be playful. I loved every minute of playing Kelly, so the challenge was more about keeping the energy up.

Towards the end of San Junipero , we finally discover that Kelly and Yorkie are elderly, dying women. The Kelly who visits Yorkie in hospital is played by a different actress, Denise Burse.