Hi, I'm Gena. I'm here with Charlie Brooker,
creator of Black Mirror,
and these are his Netflix IX.
So where do ideas usually come to you?
Ideas tend to spring up from a conversation,
- Okay. - So usually, it's
a conversation where I'm having an idea that strikes me as funny.
- Right. - So it's a sort of "what if" idea.
What if, you know,
toast became sentient, and -
- A better one than that. - Okay.
So that's usually it. Sometimes...
I've now turned into the sort of person who goes running,
- every now and then, - Oh, alright.
which young me would've thought was disgusting
So once I was running, and
Belinda Carlisle - 'Heaven is a Place on Earth' came on,
and then I thought "Ooh, that's perfect
for 'San Junipero'", which I was writing at the time.
So that's sort of why that went in.
So if you could choose any other career in the world
right, you're not doing TV writing,
so you can do anything, astronaut, zookeeper,
uh... creator of sentient toast people.
- Yes. - What would you be doing?
Serial killing.
No um... no I don't know.
I was like, "Uhhh..."
Not really - although I think I'd probably be quite well suited for that.
Yeah!
- My first job was cartoonist. - Okay.
And I sort of stopped doing it because
a.) I wasn't a very good cartoonist,
and b.) the speech bubbles drove me up the wall.
It was so boring, having to do all the text by hand.
And of course these days, you'd just use a computer to do that,
so maybe I'd go back into being a cartoonist.
You could probably still do it under a different name.
I could do it under my own name!
- Oh that's true! - I don't have to change my name!
- Well, it depends what I'm drawing. - Move country!
If you were shrunk to the size of a Malteser -
Yup.
- and then trapped in TV,
- like in Willy Wonka, with Mike Teavee, right? - Yup.
What TV show would you choose?
Why do I have to be little in it?
I just feel like it makes more sense. I was just thinking of the Willy Wonka parallel.
So you're shrunk to the size of a Malteser,
You can't be big. Malteser-sized.
But in TV you're fine.
I'm normal - So hang on,
So in the world of the show I'm normal-sized?
Yeah, but in real life you are Malteser-sized.
But these days TVs are so big I might be more like -
You're still a Malteser, don't ruin the question.
Okay. I might be cat-sized.
I will randomly choose Peppa Pig.
- Really? - Because that's quite a jolly world,
- Yeah, it is! - And actually -
they're all the wrong sizes, aren't they?
Because you've got - My wife is obsessed
- with the fact that they're all the wrong sizes. - Right.
You've got an elephant, and a pig, and a mouse,
and they're all the same... bloody size.
Is there anything Easter-egg-wise,
that fans have spotted?
We've sometimes put in little gags for people
who are pressing pause.
- Oh really? - So in 'Playtest',
there's a moment where he's signing the contract,
and if you pause it, it says -
I thought it'd be funny to put in a little -
It's like The Ring, or something, it says
"Now that you've paused this and read this,
you will die within seven days."
- Oh my - - "Unless you forward the email"
or something like that, "to seven of your friends."
And sure enough, someone spotted it.
Tell me your favourite episode of Black Mirror,
if you could choose between your children.
'San Junipero' is one that I've got a lot of affection for,
because it was the first one that I wrote for Netflix,
and it was the first time I'd written one that wasn't set in the UK,
and it was the first one with a more optimistic tone.
Do you have a favourite from this season?
Ooh - again, it's so -
There's three in this season, they're all very, very different.
- So, all of them. - Okay.
Am I allowed to say all of them?
Absolutely!
Why didn't I just say that at the start?
I don't know!
That would've been quicker. Sorry.
In 'Smithereens' it features a car service that kind of resembles Uber.
- Does it?! - Kind of, I don't know, whatever.
What is your Uber rating and do you have a good one?
Well unless it's gone down it's 4.69.
- 4.69? - Is that good?
Nice.
What's yours?
4.81.
That's good, isn't it?
That just means you're kowtowing to something.
You do proper human interaction,
whereas I'm like a short-term tenant
in the back of that vehicle.
Lucky I don't soil myself, basically.
Least you could do, Charlie, mate, d'you know what I mean?
If you had to choose three TV shows that define you,
- Oh, God. - Really sum up your personality.
Okay.
The day to day...
- The Twilight Zone. - Okay.
And a last one would be...
[non-verbal sound]
And the last one would be The Young Ones.
Okay.
What's your favourite Netflix show at the moment?
Ooh, blimey.
I'm in the middle of watching Dead To Me, at the moment,
- which I'm enjoying. - That is SO good,
I'm so glad you said that.
I'm enjoying that,
so don't tell me what happens, because I'm watching that.
I really liked Russian Doll, that I saw recently.
I laughed a lot at - I've seen one episode of
I Think You Should Leave, which is a sketch show,
- which I thought was really funny. - Oh yeah, that's really good!
I watch all the true crime documentaries,
because I'm... sick.
If you like true crime, you should watch Abducted In Plain Sight, just saying.
Oh no, I've seen that. That's... bananas.
Okay. Just... okay. Cool.
In the show a lot of young actors have
I don't know... sprung to fame,
you know, you see them in Black Mirror and now they're humungous stars,
Letitia Wright, Daniel Kaluuya for example,
is there conscious thought behind which young talent you choose?
Particularly British talent, for example.
Well, I think that's down to - we've got a really good casting team.
Daniel is a very good example, where
I remember seeing his audition tape
for 'Fifteen Million Merits',
and he was amazing, instantly amazing.
And then when we shot the episode, he does a huge speech,
it was so good, I was like, "This guy is immediately
going to be a massive star,"
and then quite a bit of time seemed to go by,
I was like "Where's Daniel?" "What's happened to Daniel?"
- Where's ol' Daniel? - Where's he gone?
And then I remember seeing the trail for Get Out,
when that was posted online,
and I was like, "YES!"
Aw, that's so nice.
And it was really gratifying to hear afterwards,
Jordan Peele said that he'd seen that episode of Black Mirror
and was like, "Who's this guy?!"
That's great.
... and had got in touch with him as a result.
Amazing.
I don't need to do an outro, do I? Are we good?
- Great. - That was a perfect outro.
Oh sorry - we're being like, "I'm over this."
- No, I'm joking. - "Get out."