Charlie Brooker - Inside Black Mirror

Cristin Milioti:The scene in the lake with Jesse was one of my favourites to film, even though it was horrible because it was the coldest body of water I’ve ever been in. Between takes, I was wrapped in a wet-suit by a diver, and was unable to stop shaking. They’d call action and we’d snap into character. I find that scene so scary and funny at the same time: it’s this weird balance between slapstick and terror!

We improvised a lot in that scene too. From what I remember, there was one splash of water in the script but then we really went for it! I also improvised that moment where Nanette pretends something’s grabbed her under the water, and maybe when she calls him a big beautiful captain! It was like being in a playground… a freezing cold playground.

Toby Haynes:That two-second aerial shot of the planet’s surface cost us about two hours on set, getting a bloody drone up there. But it did look great, and Framestore did a great job of adding a wonderful gamescape to it.

USS Callister is probably the most complete and compact piece of drama I’ve done. It’s that lovely feature length, with such a perfect beginning, middle and end, and the climax is nice and long, keeping you on the edge of your seat. And yet it has all this subtext of fandom and toxic masculinity. We also had this great female protagonist, who surprises you by the end.

‘Stick us in hyperwarp and let’s… fuck off somewhere’

Cristin Milioti:It’s rare to see a woman save the day by using her intelligence, pluck, scrappiness and skill at coding. Charlie and Annabel have a habit of being eerily prescient. I felt exactly where Callister was coming from, just from having been a woman in the world. When I was in London shooting that, Trump had been elected a couple of months prior. It certainly felt wonderful to see this intelligent woman take down a misogynistic bully. I don’t know whether that was some retroactive wish fulfilment, but it was very potent.

Charlie Brooker:We flew to New York for the premiere. When the plane landed and everyone switched their phones on, the Harvey Weinstein story had just broken. So, obviously, Callister wasn’t knowingly about Weinstein. I can see how that could look like we saw the news and decided to rush out a female empowerment saga, but that element was probably just a product of going for what was most dramatically interesting. If you put Daly in a world where he’s strutting around like this alpha cartoon hero, what’s he going to find most threatening? One of the female crew members, questioning and undermining and overthrowing his authority.

Annabel Jones:We deliberated over the Gamer voice at the very end for a long time. We did try out a few accents that were more inherently comedic, but I think Charlie was worried they were a bit patronising to gamers. Then Charlie wondered whether Aaron Paul might ever be interested and Aaron very kindly agreed. As Aaron’s voice is so recognisable, it really gave the end of the film a lovely extra boost. As this was quite late in the post process we totally forgot to tell the other cast members – we’re so professional – and so at the end of the premiere they were all in shock. It was a particular surprise to Jesse, who had of course worked with Aaron on Breaking Bad .

Cristin Milioti:I loved ending up in the captain’s chair, but also that whole final scene. I just love the humour, because it’s a triumphant spaceship scene and yet they’re still office co-workers, who are scrappy and scrambling. I find that end very thrilling, even though there’s the caveat that Nanette’s stuck in virtual reality forever! But she’s her best self, and what is reality anyway? It’s a real onion.

In Conversation

Jodie Foster – director

Cindy Holland – Vice President of Original Content, Netflix

Charlie Brooker – writer and executive producer

Annabel Jones – executive producer

Brenna Harding – actor

In a forgotten, post-industrial American town, concerned mother Marie Sambrell is shaken by the experience of losing her young daughter Sara in a public place. Marie decides to sign Sara up for Arkangel, the revolutionary new child-monitoring system. Arkangel allows Marie to not only locate Sara at all times, but monitor and censor what she sees. Years later, as Sara explores teenagehood, Marie finds herself tempted to get the long-dormant Arkangel back out of the closet.

Jodie Foster (director):I didn’t know about Black Mirror until I met with Cindy Holland at Netflix. We were commiserating about the movie business, as we do every once in a while, and I said how much I looked forward to the day when we have feature-length movies on cable streaming. For me, that’s the perfect short story form, with a beginning, middle and end.

Cindy Holland (Vice President of Original Content, Netflix):Jodie had graciously lent her considerable directing talents to both Orange Is the New Black and House Of Cards , but she was searching for something she could help fully realise. When I read Arkangel I thought it might be the perfect fit.

Jodie Foster:Cindy said, “Well, have I got a show for you!”

Charlie Brooker:The notion of a device that you can use to spy on every aspect of your child from a safety perspective almost certainly wouldn’t have occurred to me if parenthood hadn’t reprogrammed me. It used to really annoy me when new parents would say, “Suddenly I’ve got the meaning of my life!” but you do drop down in the hierarchy. You are no longer the most important thing in your world, which is irritating. Also, this constant anxiety gets augmented, where you’ve got to protect these kids.

I once rang NHS Direct because I thought our first child had started crying with a different accent. Suddenly his cry was completely different, because little babies are very high pitched. But I didn’t know, and as a first time parent I was terrified something was going horribly wrong. And if you Google anything, it tells you that it’s fatal.

Annabel Jones:So in a world of helicopter parenting and technology that can feed this neurosis, here was an opportunity for a Black Mirror story. And like the best Black Mirror technology, Arkangel is designed to help and support. A device that will tell you where your child is if they go missing: who’s not going to use that?

Jodie Foster:Netflix sent me the Arkangel script first, before I even went back and watched any episodes! And I loved the script, so that was a good first step. Then I really saw everything I could. I love Shut Up and Dance with the two guys on the road, the Christmas special… and of course we all love The National Anthem .

Oh my gosh, the Arkangel script spoke to me for so many reasons. I was raised by a single mom: that incredibly difficult, fascinating, emotional relationship between a mother and her daughter in a single-parent family. There’s something almost too intimate about it, and I felt the script raised so many questions about who we are as women at this particular time in history. As mothers, we hope to raise these strong daughters who don’t have to learn the feminist lessons that we did. And there’s a price to shielding them from that reality.