Here Are 17 Interesting "Black Mirror" Season Six Facts We Learned In Conversation With Charlie Brooker

    "There was certainly an attempt to shake things up completely."

    Sam Cleal
    by Sam Cleal

    BuzzFeed Staff

    Black Mirror is back TODAY with five brand new episodes after a longgggg absence.

    Nick Wall/Netflix

    The highly anticipated return of the iconic Netflix series brings the episodes "Joan Is Awful" (starring Annie Murphy and Salma Hayek), "Loch Henry" (starring Monica Dolan and John Hannah), "Beyond the Sea" (starring Aaron Paul, Josh Hartnett, and Kate Mara) "Mazey Day" (starring Zazie Beetz and Danny Ramirez), and "Demon 79" (starring Anjana Vasan and Paapa Essiedu) to the platform.

    To talk more about this season and his creative process, we caught up with writer and creator Charlie Brooker. Here are 17 interesting facts he shared with us about season six of Black Mirror.

    Michael Wharley/Netflix

    Warning: this post contains some spoilers for season six of Black Mirror.

    1. Charlie wrote the character of Joan for Annie Murphy after bingeing Schitt's Creek.

    Netflix/CBC

    Charlie Brooker: "I think a lot of people hoovered up Schitt's Creek during the pandemic, and Annie Murphy was a standout to me. She's so funny – I mean, everyone's really funny in that show – so she made perfect sense as Joan.

    I wanted someone who was likeable yet relatable, goofy, and flawed. You just warm to Annie! She has very funny bones, and our director for that episode – Ally Pankiw – had also worked on Schitt's Creek, so that was ideal."

    2. He often pictures people for the characters he creates, which can help with casting.

    Netflix

    CB: "Sometimes, when I'm writing, I have a particular person in mind which helps me picture the character I'm creating, although other times I just don't know. It's hard for me to remember at what point someone in particular was pictured, but it does help with casting. I get very involved in that from time to time, but we also have great casting directors!"

    3. Charlie knew he wanted a "Hollywood A-Lister" to star in the episode "Joan Is Awful", but he initially wasn't sure who to approach.

    Ana Blumekron/Netflix

    CB: "I remember when I was writing 'Joan Is Awful', I just put Hollywood A-Lister in the script for Salma's part. You don't dare to think you're really gonna get a Hollywood A-Lister to play the role of themselves, let alone get them to do some of the things you need them to!

    I can't recall at what point Salma's name came up, but I remember thinking, 'do we dare ask her?' We eventually did, and I think she'd seen the show and was intrigued. She got the premise straight away so we sent her a script."

    4. Salma Hayek Pinault's one note was to make her part more "outrageous".

    Nick Wall/Netflix/Jason LaVeris / FilmMagic / Via Getty Images

    CB: "The script was actually quite bland because I wouldn't have dared write some of the stuff that she's actually called upon to say. Then we had a Zoom call with her where that was her one note – make it more outrageous and feel free to lean into personal things from her life. That's why we mention her being dyslexic and a Roman Catholic. After she said that, it was carte blanche!"

    5. Salma and Annie were totally down for THAT church scene.

    Netflix

    CB: "I think their first impressions of the scene were, 'thank God, I've always wanted to do this'. No, but they were really game. We had to shoot that a couple of times, obviously, and they both did it with as much good humour and grace as you can possibly demonstrate in that situation."

    6. Anjana Vasan – star of "Demon 79" AKA Red Mirror – has appeared in an episode of Black Mirror before.

    Nick Wall/Netflix

    CB: "Did you notice she's in the 'Nosedive' episode? She only had a small part in that, but she's brilliant!"

    7. Netflix were super keen for Black Mirror to parody them.

    Netflix

    CB: "We got the Netflix parody approved with disappointing ease! I'd love to say that they said, 'oh, please don't do this, and we went, no, we're gonna do it anyway', but actually, they were good sports about it.

    In the script originally we wanted Streamberry to show up quite frequently. Then when it came to designing it, we thought, rather than trying to make it look like a generic streamer, what if we made it look like Netflix? We floated it by them – cos if you don't ask, you don't get – and they said yes... Worryingly quickly!"

    8. Charlie knew how all of the episodes would end from early on.

    Netflix

    CB: "The endings were baked in fairly early on. When you're writing, I find it's really useful to have a final image in mind – usually it is an image rather than like a line of dialogue. Then you've at least got a direction of travel. It just means that you're not just staring at a blank page and feeling inadequate, you're staring at a blank page and feeling inadequate because you know where you should be."

    9. The story in "Beyond The Sea" was inspired by pandemic life.

    Nick Wall/Netflix

    CB: "'Beyond the Sea' I thought of quite a while ago. It's inspired by isolation, loneliness, a lack of connection, and working from home in a weird way, so it was a good time to do it following the pandemic."

    10. And "Joan Is Awful" was inspired by shows that are based on VERY recent events.

    Nick Wall/Netflix

    CB: "'Joan Is Awful' was partly inspired by the vogue for shows based on something that happened 10 minutes ago; things like The Dropout, which is that great Elizabeth Holmes biographical series. There was also a thing where Kenneth Branagh played Boris Johnson wasn't there? I was thinking of shows of that nature, which seem to dramatise something that happened 10 minutes ago!"

    11. Charlie often get his ideas from random musings and news stories.

    Michael Wharley/Netflix

    CB: "I quite often start with an idea or even a news story that is ridiculous in some way, and end up trying to play it straight or with a sort of horrifying effect or darkly comic effect."

    12. The episodes were written in reverse order to how they appear on Netflix.

    Netflix

    CB: "'Demon 79', which I co-wrote with Bisha K. Ali who I think is brilliant, was written first. That's a Red Mirror film, and it was almost done as a cleansing exercise. We thought, 'let's do one that's more like a horror movie'. It's not a Black Mirror, it's a Red Mirror. It's sort of psychologically attached, but in a different genre.

    Even though that's a story set in 1979, it's clearly inspired by stuff that's going on right now, so hopefully it feels quite timely."

    13. Charlie loves to go to set, but he makes sure to keep out of the way of the director and cast!

    Blair Raughley/Invision for Netflix

    CB: "Generally our episodes are quite self-sufficient, and they run almost as separate films with their own director, editor, composer, DOP, and the rest of it. The directors will usually have feedback on scripts and the cast will have feedback on their roles. The director is ultimately the one who has to forge a trusting relationship with the cast, so they tend to steer the ship as much as possible.

    Whenever I go to set I don't like to get in between the directors and the actors because that's a sort of sacred space, but then I get heavily involved again during the edit phase."

    14. He also knows what you're writing about him on Twitter.

    @nicemuscles / Via knowyourmeme.com

    CB: "There was a thing that went viral, which I think must have been written by an American. It said that Black Mirror is written by one stoned British dude who says things like, 'what if your mum ran on batteries?' I read that and thought, 'that's annoying', but honestly, that's not that far from the truth! Not the stoned part, I can't do that anymore, I'm too old. The rest of it is accurate though."

    15. This season of Black Mirror is meant to be a season of change.

    Netflix

    CB: "There was certainly an attempt to shake things up completely. Interestingly, I started this season not looking so much at technology, and that was inevitably where it went because I just started having all sorts of ideas that weren't traditional Black Mirror ideas. I was keen to avoid those for one season."

    16. Red Mirror is a sister label to Black Mirror.

    Netflix

    CB: "Effectively, Red Mirror is a sister label – it was just a way of us telling you it's gonna be something slightly different... Don't expect the story to pull out and reveal it's all been happening in a computer!

    There's five episodes in this series – of which one is a Red Mirror – but actually two of them could be. We made a different intro for episode five, but I kept changing the titles on episode four from the classic Black Mirror intro to the new Red Mirror title. I literally swapped them in and out about five times – I couldn't decide!

    In the end, I thought it was almost a spoiler not to have the Black Mirror intro, but now I'm wondering if that was the right decision. I might go back and change that at some point in the future! In an ideal world, you'd watch it once and then it would change when you went back again."

    17. And finally, expect more Black Mirror after this!

    Netflix

    CB: "I don't know what's next, but I mean, there's lots of ideas in my head! Hopefully we can keep on going and keep making these appalling, but sometimes amusing shows."

    Let us know if you're looking forward to Black Mirror season six, and/or what your thoughts are on the series in the comments!