Black Mirror can sometimes be a bit of a mindfuck, but Issa Rae felt clear on one thing when she signed up: Her episode reminded her of “San Junipero.”
“Hotel Reverie” shares a lot of connective tissue with episodes of Black Mirror’s past, but the queer love story taking place entirely in a virtual world definitely ties “Hotel Reverie” and “San Junipero” more directly together. In a press junket, Rae explains that only series creator and writer Charlie Brooker would know for sure, but it’s not hard to make the connection between the two episodes.
“[Brooker] established this kind of world where Black Mirror episodes already talk to each other and there are Easter eggs,” she said in a press roundtable. “So I would imagine yes, given that there’s an Easter egg for ‘San Junipero’ in ours, that he had it in mind — and it’s big shoes to fill. So I just hope that people can look at them both separately, but also appreciate them both as complements to one another.”
In “Hotel Reverie,” Rae takes on the role of actress Brandy Friday — who in turn takes on the lead role in a simulated remake of Hotel Reverie, a fictional 1940s romantic movie. Aside from Brandy, all the actors are artificial intelligence and the set is entirely virtual. Brandy plays Dr. Alex Palmer, the male lead, who in the original is played by a white British man.
To put a finer point on it: Rae plays Brandy, a modern-day actress, who’s playing Dr. Alex Palmer, a character from a 1940s movie, who was previously played by Ralph Redwall, a fictional actor, who IRL is played by real-life actor Enzo Cilenti. Rae is an actress on a Netflix TV show who plays an actress signing up to film a movie that turns out to be an AI simulation that draws not just from the original movie but also everything the actors put into their performances, which also includes their own real lives — phew! That’s a lot to wrap one’s head around, and Rae knew it.
[Ed. note: This post contains spoilers for the third episode of Black Mirror season 7.]
Image: Netflix
“Playing a male actor in the ’40s and having to embody that and not knowing what level to embody it and what a remake looks like and what would be considered a good remake in these times, if that’s even a consideration,” Rae said after listing some of the many layers that came with the episode.
In the episode, Brandy is pretty excited for this remake, which she sees as a chance to break out of the usual roles she gets typecast as, like action star’s love interest or tragic character in an Oscar-bait drama. Before diving into the role of Alex, Brandy takes the time to research the movie — particularly Dorothy Chambers, the actress who originally played the role of melancholy heiress Clara (in the episode, she’s played by Emma Corrin). Even before Brandy meets Clara in the simulation, she’s drawn to the mysterious actress, who died a tragic and enigmatic death.
“Brandy recognized an element of Dorothy’s loneliness, an element of Dorothy not being able to be her full self and tap into her full potential,” explains Rae. “She recognized those elements in her. There is a reverence and a respect there of just this person from the past, this actress who had this tragic journey.”
Image: Netflix
All that and then having that AI react to Brandy and physically touch her turns the whole experience super intense. Where does Clara end and Dorothy begin? If the AI slowly becomes more aware and starts going off-program, at what point does she transcend into her own personhood?
“I can only imagine being in that scenario for real,” Rae says. “And I had so many questions, and with that, I could completely see myself enamored. If you put me in a movie with […] Tupac — I find him very attractive. He was just so, so smart, and you know that he’s going to die soon and you want to save him. I can only imagine if I were placed in that movie, the range of emotions I would feel; I’ll fall in love too.”
Image: Netflix
Of course, in real life, the connection and chemistry between the two leads was carved out by something more grounded than AI simulations and virtual longing: good old-fashioned bonding exercises.
“I credit Haolu [Wang, the director of the episode] for making us play these stupid improv games together to get to know each other,” Rae laughs. “That really helped to bond us. It was so much fun. That was obviously her main intention. You have to believe that these two people who are from these different time periods, different worlds, living and dead, would and could fall for one another.”
Still, like Brandy was starstruck with Dorothy, Rae found herself intrigued by Corrin’s performance and career. That fascination definitely helped sell Brandy’s completely dazzled look when she first sees the virtual version of Clara.
“[The improv] was just the standard bonding thing that actors do, but [I also had] a genuine curiosity about who Emma was and who Emma is,” she explains. “And also kind of just falling in love with them as a performer, watching Emma transform into Dorothy, into this 1940s starlet, was just so remarkable — down to the accent and the mannerisms and the way that Dorothy would glide. It was perfect.”
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