Kermode & Mayo’s Take - Now and Ben: Charlie Brooker & Emma Corrin on Black Mirror

Episode Date: April 16, 2025

If you’ve managed to watch any of the excellent seventh series of Black Mirror yet, you might have spotted our super sub Ben Bailey Smith popping up there... and just for you he’s collared his fellow dystopians Charlie Brooker and Emma Corrin for a chat about the mind-bending anthology’s latest iteration. Brooker is the writer and creator of the show, which has been sending sci-fi shivers down our spines since it first hit British TV screens in 2011, before going global with Netflix in 2016. So for over a decade, “it’s all a bit Black Mirror” has been the phrase on everyone’s lips whenever real-world technology makes another ever-so-slightly terrifying leap forward. Emma Corrin stars in episode three of the new series, ‘Hotel Reverie’, in which a cutting-edge filmmaking technology called ReDream allows modern day actors to star in high-tech remakes of classic films. Actor Brandy (Issa Rae) steps into the world of a 1940s movie—where she meets Corrin’s golden age star Dorothy. Charlie and Emma chat to Ben about Hotel Reverie and the rest of the brand new series. They talk golden age Hollywood, the shipping forecast, and erm... bowling? It goes places. Listen now for the whole story! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey Mark, I can't believe they've remade Snow White. What a classic, the Dark Forest sequence. Scarier than anything in the exorcist. Scard me for life. Not as scary as the Dark Web, however, but luckily you can stay safe from all the spooky stuff lurking there with NordVPN. It will protect you online with encryption and alerts to guard against hackers. No more poison apples then, or dodgy fishing pages.

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nuggets of guest interview goodness. This time Ben chats to Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker to celebrate the sci-fi anthology's seventh series, and Emma Corrin, star of its third episode, Hotel Reverie. They talk tech dystopia, the shipping forecast, and... goaling. Keep your eye on the take feed for these interview treats every now and then. I'm here with Charlie Brooker and Emma Corrin. Charlie, let's start with you because I'm just wondering how you felt when you pitch a lot on the very last frame of the very last episode you worked on in this new series.

I probably needed the toilet or something. Probably something like that. Probably something really unglamorous like that. No, um, relieved? That's kind of the same, right? You're backed up for a long time. Yeah, exactly like doing a poo after a long haul flight. Oh, what a relief.

Because it was a long process. Well, you know this. It feels like six movies, do you know what I mean? And full disclosure, one of them I'm actually in. You're very good in it too. Well, thank you. We can do this for 15 minutes for sure. Yeah, we'll just do that. No, well, we treat them as individual films,

and we keep everyone hermetically sealed, so you guys haven't sort of met before. No one knows what's going on. Everyone gets sort of weirdly jealous and odd about other episodes, and we claim there aren't any other episodes. But it does mean that because we keep them separate, they have different directors, they have different casts, obviously. And so, as much as possible, we keep everything separate.

It means that it takes a long time to make the whole season. What was the last episode you shot? Shot, we shot one in Canada. Whoa. Yeah. All the rest were shot in Britain, and we shot one in Canada. Just to be bloody minded about it. Why not?

Yeah, so it was, we started shooting in late 23? Because it was just early… Yeah, it was Christmas, I think it was coming up to Christmas. 23. 23, yeah. That's one. And think it was coming up to Christmas. 23. 23, yeah. And he was there most of the time. Was he there most of the time on Hotel Reverie? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I was there sometimes. Because when we were doing Reverie, we were also finishing off USS Callister. Yes, you were. At the same time, because I remember that was a total fantasy. Because, like, so we had people in spacesuits over here. And then you're back in the 40s. 1940s. And in Cairo, so you also had like fancy vintage outfits, fezzies and all sorts. So it felt like being in your fantasy version

of like a Hollywood, what it would be like if you worked in the movies. On one of those old sets. Yeah, because it's like, and they were doing reshoots for Gladiator 2 apparently, just me. They were, yeah, yeah. So you'd sort of get people in... There's a shark in a swimming pool next door.

Exactly, basically. So it was... It's an interesting thing having the writer on set with you, because obviously there's tweaks that can happen in the moment. Yeah. Probably my most abiding memory, the one that will stay with me throughout my career, I think, is being sat at a desk in our episode and Charlie having me called a **** in about 30 different ways, like literally for about an hour.

Wasn't called for. No, not quite right. Not quite right. It's a kind of strange therapy in a way. Yeah. There's a bit where you get called a ****, that's true. There's a bit where you get called a **** and we wanted lots of different versions on it. It's a very different flavour from Hotel Ville.

Very different. Yeah, so that didn't happen to me. Yeah. Let's talk about this episode because I'm still kind of reeling from it because I just, I found it so overwhelmingly sad and emotional, but can you set it up for people who are about to dig in because it's quite hard to describe. Yeah, I was going to say please, I'll do it. Okay, you know what? I'll do's quite hard to describe. Yeah, I was going to say, please, I'll do it. I'll do it.

You know what? I'll do it. I can try. Yeah, OK, go, go, go. So this, I'm going to be quite practical about it. There's a software called Redream that has been created, which this production company called Keep Worth Pictures decides to use to take an old Hollywood film,

like say, Casablanca-esque, and to sort of artificially impose a modern actor, present day actor, into the film and remake it in real time and sort of plot them in and let that happen. And then something goes wrong with the software. And so this actor is trapped in the sort of augmented... Augmented, is that the right word? Maybe, I don't know about Maybe. It's not wrong. It's not right. And the fake film world. And they're trapped in it, but everyone's alive. Yeah, so there's a sort of Truman Show element almost.

But we also know a little bit about the actor that you're playing. So this is about to get very meta. So it's like actor versus character and then... Exactly. You're an actor playing an actor playing a character. And it's like actor versus character and then... Exactly. You're an actor playing an actor versus character. Yeah, and it's the character waking up to the fact that they're an actor in this film. Issa Rae is trapped in this film with you and the more time you spend together, this sort of... well, I mean, it's not sort of, it is a love affair that blooms.

Yeah, it's a love story. And the whole world is frozen around us. There are just these two people who have this like unending period of time for a bit. Here's a list of reasons to use Instacart. The game is on. The game just ended. The next game is on. Life is busy, but with Instacart, you really don't ever have to leave the couch.

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Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at Shopify.co.uk take Shopify.co.uk slash take. Your voice is so accurate. I was raised in one of those families that forced you to watch like old movies. That sounds radical. Yeah, it's really fascistic in my house about art. I was the same, I watched a lot of old films growing up. So did you already have a sort of sense of that voice in your head? It's kind of always been one I wanted to do, like a transatlantic-esque thing, I think it's so brilliant.

I just think it's absurd. It really is, all those old movies. It's unbelievable, but I kind of love it, and I kind of miss that we don't have that. You know when you turn a radio program on, you listen to a radio program from back then, and everyone's voice is just... The news reports, the Pathé news reports, my favorite. Reporting on the football. Have you ever listened to a shipping forecast from when they first began?

Absolutely. It's the most incredible thing. How are you hearing that? This is all research. I love the shipping forecast. What? As in vintage ones, you go back and listen to old ones. Classic.

I have done. A boat in the past. In the 40s. Everyone's got their thing. Is your Spotify wrapped for 2024? It's just... It's like nothing but a 90s shipping forecast. Love that.

Mad for it. So neat. Mad for it. Can I ask a question? This is probably a question for you, Charlie, but about that episode. Was it always in your mind to cast a black actor for that role? Yes. Okay, good.

Because, you know, when I was watching it, I was thinking, you know, you've got the whole forbidden love thing. Obviously, you know, in the original film, we're talking about adultery. But then suddenly we see into Dorothy's life and realise that there's this forbidden love in her real life. And then there's this additional layer of her with another woman who's also a person of colour. But that made me think about the 40s and 40s Hollywood being a forbidden place for actors of color. And then you think about Gone With The Wind and stuff, you know, I don't know.

There seemed to be a lot of layers to it, so I'm glad that happened. Yeah, no, it was intentional, but also I hope worn fairly lightly within the actual story itself, because it's kind of, it's weird. It's one of those things where it's not about that, but that means it sort of is about that. On some level. You know what I mean? Because again, I saw it very much as that the story becomes about two... I'm not a spiritual person, but two souls, two spirits that sort of meet. So it's kind of that. So I was sort of channeling...

I remember I wrote an episode, San Junipero, back in like whenever that, for season three. And that was, that's about a sort of same-sex couple that get together in a sort of virtual 1980s. And I remember then thinking, oh, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna ignore, and I'm just gonna write about two people. Because that's all I can kind of do.

So in a way I'm not, paradoxically, by not really thinking about that too much, not worrying about it, hopefully that means that what you come up with is both sort of universal and very accessible, but also it is deliberately specific at the same time. Absolutely. No, that's exactly what I felt. Because the love story stood right there at the top. But it was just that constant thing of like, oh yeah, we just didn't exist.

And there's little reminders, because you might see like the black guy working at the bar. At the bar, or the mysterious Arab slash other kind of helper in the Fez. And you're like, yeah, that's, that was our position basically. So it was just nice to see a nod to it. And I knew you would have done it on purpose. You know, everything I read about Black Mirror is always about the tech and the horror and oh my God, look at where we're going in the nightmare. But, you know, last night, the double header that I watched, that I chose to watch was, Emma, your episode, Hotel Reverie, of course, and, and Eulogy. And what I was left with, apart from like elements of Truman Show and Mix of Christmas Carol with, with Eululogy was this sort of feeling that there's something about the human condition, right? There's like a sadness that we all have, like just from existing.

Yeah. You know, like, how do I put this? I'm jealous of my dog, okay? Oh, 100% I think that happened to me. Because she's just like, well, I'm just doing my thing. Living in the moment. Death to her is going to be the ultimate surprise. It's just like, oh ****, I'm dead. Whereas like the gift and the curse for us is that we sort of know.

So we're constantly looking for meaning. And those two episodes, they really struck me on that level. And like I said, there's a lot of talk about darkness and horror. The sadness, the sadness of being alive was the thing that hit me. And the loneliness. Not really a question, but I just wanted to... No, I think you're right. The fear of being alone, which is tied into tech,

but I'm not so interested in that. I think you're right in that generally as well over, like sometimes people characterize Black Mirror as always horrible stories about... And actually there is a sort of core sadness to a lot of the stories, I think, that are going. But hopefully moments of, I think both of those stories, so you won't have seen, again, we're talking about episodes you haven't seen. Eulogy is in many ways a companion piece to Reverend Gill.

I was just guessing, and they were a perfect double bill. I plucked it at random. And sort of the past and they're evocative and so on and so forth. But you know, so hopefully they're bittersweet. Because I think they're both... Bittersweet's a very good... I think Hotel Ruby's very bittersweet. Melancholy. You can say melancholy. Melancholy.

And they all have moments of, as ever, you know, laugh out loud. I mean, the direction for Brandy, for Issa's character in Hotel... Constantly made me laugh. It's so funny, isn't it? In amongst that horrifying sadness. In this world that's like a bit insane and a bit ridiculous. And similarly with Eulogy, you've got another little guide. Yes, you're right.

Like a Coffina, you know, for Paul G. Mattie's character. Well, in Reverie, we've got two duos. So we've got you and Brandy, we've got Ewan Brand, we've got Ewanisa, like in the film, and there's Awkwafina and Harriet in the sort of control room. And then in Reverie, it's Paul Giamatti and Patsy Ferrin, his guide through his memory world. Yeah, I think you'll love it. And then if you watch it like I did, as an accidental double bill with yours.

They do feel like sort of companion pieces about sort of evocative things. You'll love it. And if you watch it like I did, as an accidental double bill of yours, you'll get a little more... They do feel like sort of companion pieces about sort of evocative things. He's stepping into old photographs from the 1990s. Oh my god. It's dope. Oh, that would be so cool to do. It's really cool.

Hey, look, you all got cool episodes, right? No, no, no, that's awesome. No, no, it's cooler. You know when someone asks you if you could have a superpower or wake up with an ability? I feel like stepping into photographs would be so cool. It would be. Well, and the other thing is that these are old photos because, of course, now, one of the things we were thinking about really early on is that because you used to have just a handful of photographs that sort of documented your past. You'd only have like six or something.

And they'd be imperfect because people would be blinking or they'd be like red eye or it'd just be overexposed, or blurry, or whatever. Whereas now, obviously, photos, you can just keep taking them. Do you remember the last three or four in your pack were always just pictures of the fireplace? Yeah. Or the car on the way to Kodak. This is rubbish.

You just need to finish the film. Yeah, your shoes. We even have that sort of in there. There's a photo like that. It becomes one of the key sort of moments in the story. But again, I don't know how that will play with a younger generation that only know camera phones. Get them to do research like Emma did. You know?

Get them to go back and listen to the shipping forecast. Grow up. Honestly, this series is a triumph. I can't wait to watch the rest of it. I haven't watched USS yet, but I'll do that tonight. Do you? Actually, no, I'm not. I'm going to watch it next week with you.

Come to the screening. That's the sequel, right? Is that on the same night that the Hotel River one is? It is. Yes, we're showing, we're taking over a multiplex as well. We're taking over a multiplex on the BFI. Does that mean there's bowling? Bowling?

Is that what a multiplex is? It's going to be bowling, champagne, and then afterwards we're all going to... I feel like a multiplex makes you think of bowling, but I don't know. We're all going to get together and listen to the shipping forecast. Bowling? I'd like to go bowling, I guess is what I'm saying. I've had to wind up for the past two minutes. Good to see you again. I'll see you next week.