Black Mirror: Beyond The Sea - Aaron Paul Pleaded For A Bigger Part After Season 4
Anthology shows are definitely a great way for actors to flex their chops; it's a low-commitment way to explore an entirely new story without embarking on some lengthy new project that could potentially take up years of your life. That could be why so many excellent actors show up on Charlie Brooker's "Black Mirror," which has featured everybody from Miley Cyrus to Salma Hayek to Jon Hamm... and it could definitely be why Aaron Paul said he was desperate to come back after the tiniest of cameos in an earlier season.
Paul has a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment in a Season 4 episode — but more on that in a moment — and as he told Rolling Stone, he was dying to return to Brooker's dystopian world. "Oh man, I've been wanting to be a part of this world for some time now," the "Breaking Bad" veteran said. "I made it very evident that my hand is raised if they ever wanted to approach me. I've been a fan of 'Black Mirror' since it started airing in the U.K. And when they approached me years ago to do the little voice-over in 'USS Callister,' I pleaded with them to come back to me with another role other than just a one-scene bit part. And Charlie was really excited that I was a big fan of the show. We tried to make it happen last season, but just the scheduling wouldn't allow it. And then this landed on my desk out of nowhere, and I of course read it instantly, and of course, here we are."
Aaron Paul has a teeny-tiny cameo in USS Callister
Lest we forget, Aaron Paul previously lent his voice to the standout Season 4 opener of "Black Mirror," which pairs him with one of his former "Breaking Bad" co-stars — Jesse Plemons, who played one of Jesse Pinkman's (Paul) torturers, Todd Alquist, in the later seasons. "USS Callister" features Plemons as Robert Daly, a programmer who feels underappreciated at the company he helped start — and to cope, he creates a program where he uses actual genetic material he quietly collects from his coworkers and subordinates to create avatars of them in a "Star Trek" style universe. Within this program, he's basically God, and he uses this power to tormet his coworkers as often as possible, turning them into bugs and forcing them to be subservient and appreciative.
At the very end, after Robert is bested by new avatar Nanette (Cristin Milioti) and supplanted, Nanette leads the now freed ship on a new adventure... which begins when they receive a communiqué from a game player named Gamer691. "So are we going to blow each other, or are we going to trade?" the mystery player asks, then saying the USS Callister needs to evacuate his space before he "blasts them to sh*t." That gamer? He's voiced by Paul.
In Beyond the Sea, Aaron Paul had to play two characters
Perhaps because he had such a small role in "USS Callister," Brooker built an incredibly juicy part for Paul in the Season 6 episode "Beyond the Sea." In the supersized episode, Paul plays Cliff alongside Josh Hartnett's David, and the two have android versions of themselves down on Earth while they work on a spacecraft, unable to see their families. When David's family is slaughtered by an anti-android cult, Cliff offers to let David use his android, and this goes as terribly as you might think... but it also means Paul plays both characters at different points.
Asked about playing both Cliff and David, Paul said, "What I love is that their differences are pretty apparent. It seems as though David's home is sort of like that picture-perfect, beautiful home ... Seems as though he has a very loving, passionate relationship with his wife. Very polar opposite to the relationship that Cliff has with his." Thanks to this strained relationship, Cliff's wife Lana, played by Kate Mara, ends up entranced by David in Cliff's body... which presents, obviously, an enormous problem.
"I think the difference is Cliff is a little standoffish, very closed off to the outside world, a little bit uncomfortable in social situations, and just kind of wants the conversations to end," Paul concluded. "Where David, he's very charismatic, outgoing, loving, funny, and charming, and that's very Josh. So I'm just trying to mirror what I've learned from that guy."
There's one thing Aaron Paul thinks is scarier than any Black Mirror episode
Everyone knows that most "Black Mirror" episodes are about how technology can be used for evil; after all, the title of the show comes from the way our reflections stare back at us from the blank, shut-off screens of our devices. Paul's aware of that, and he knows "Beyond the Sea" is, if nothing else, about how technology can destroy relationships and even lives — not only does David's family end up dead, but Lana and Cliff's son die as well, murdered at David's hands as an act of grief and revenge at the end of the episode.
Paul, for his part, thinks there's something worse than all of this lurking in the real world — and that's the advent of artificial intelligence potentially being used in entertainment. "I think AI and all of that is very dangerous," Paul said, expanding on how "Beyond the Sea" features some scary tech. "Yeah, you get some cool graphics, but when it starts to just take away jobs first and foremost ... It's a slippery slope. Be careful what you wish for."
"Yeah, it's scary," Paul clarified, saying that AI freaks him out as an actor. "I want to go to set, I want to learn my lines, I want to work with the crew that I slowly get to know through the season or the series or the film. It's very much a collaborative effort to make a project happen."
Funny enough, Brooker said he experimented with AI for a "Black Mirror" script and it was awful — so hopefully, Paul need not worry. "Black Mirror" Season 6 is streaming on Netflix now.