Having co-written the teleplay for Black Mirror season 3 opener “Nosedive” alongside Michael Schur, Rashida Jones is no stranger to the franchise’s bleak satirical approach. Jones discussed what it was like to re-enter the Black Mirror universe when she and Gaynor actress Tracee Ellis Ross spoke to Den of Geek and other journalists at a pre-release roundtable.
“I’m never saying no to Black Mirror. Charlie knows that,” Jones says. “But this felt like it really had that classic Black Mirror flavor. Tonally, it reminds me of the first time I ever watched Black Mirror in its first season – that bleakness and ability to straddle comedy and darkness. I would do anything to be in this universe. But this episode in particular, I felt well suited for this part.”
According to the duo, the process for receiving a Black Mirror script and learning of its premise is something straight out of a Black Mirror episode itself.
“I said yes before knowing what the episode was,” Ross says. “Then, when I read the script, I was like ‘oh, even better!’ You get a script that is digitally imprinted for you so no one can read it but you, not even your representatives. It’s kind of cool. You feel like you’re in an alternate reality.”
Once aboard, the biggest challenge for Jones wasn’t the episode’s brutal ending but the seemingly more mundane issue of ad copy that Rivermind requires Amanda to deliver.
“I was the most excited by that and also the most nervous about it being right. Ally Pankiw, the director, was so great. She let me experiment and try variety of things that were really subtle, and then really over the top. We ended up somewhere in the middle where it feels like the ads are using my personality to sell, as opposed to the ad kind of taking over in a way that just doesn’t feel like me.”
