REFLECTIONS FROM THE BLACK MIRROR

WORDS & INTERVIEW

BETH BENNETT

Photography

BETH BENNETT

Production Stills

COURTESY OF NETFLIX

With her latest role in Charlie Brooker's anthology stirring up a storm, we invited actor Anjana Vasan on a walk around West London where she caught us up on her winding road to 1979.

EJ I’m really excited to get to chat to you today because it feels like I’ve seen you everywhere really, from We Are Lady Parts to Killing Eve and now Black Mirror - what I want to begin with is the very simple question: did you always know this is what you wanted to do?

AV I always knew, deep down, that I wanted to act but I wasn’t sure that it was a thing that you could really, feasibly do. I just didn’t have any idea or a plan of what the roadmap would be to doing something like that without the connections. So, I had this interest and passion for theatre and I thought to myself, you know, if I can’t be an actor, I want to be a director or work with children doing theatre through education. So I ended up doing Theatre Studies at University and learned those initial skills to be able to be a part of that performing world. But when I graduated, I knew I’d always regret it if I didn’t at least try and train as an actor so I made the decision to just give it a go.

EJ Your first role was in Fresh Meat, right?

AV Yes! I hadn’t even graduated and I got the role after auditioning and… I mean, my first reaction was to panic because it hit me that I’d actually have to do it. It was insane, you know? I was a foreigner who was studying over here and I just didn’t think it would happen, that I’d go back home once I finished studying. But suddenly I had this job and… I was going to be able to work here.

EJ Not only that, but it’s on TV with Jack Whitehall!

AV Exactly! It was a real learning experience for me. I didn’t know anything about filming, the marks on the floor, and all I kept telling myself was ‘say your lines and don’t bump into the set’ - that was my only goal. But I had so much fun. Most of my scenes were with Greg McHugh who was so lovely and patient with me. I must have been quite doe-eyed and sort of a bit starstruck but he was able to make me feel at ease. I’ll always remember that.

EJ It really is a testament to your acting because you really can’t tell that it’s your first role. You look so at home on screen already at that point.

AV I think the thing is that it’s just one step, one foot in front of the other. You keep doing it. Then one day you realise that you’re still going. That’s what acting is. For a long time, I just wanted to be able to call myself an actor confidently. To be able to do that fully, that was my definition of success.

EJ From speaking to actors myself, I’ve come to understand that it’s like an apprenticeship in most ways because, well, you could do all of the theory in the world but you really learn by being on the job and having that experience.

AV The first couple of years after drama school is exactly that. You go on these small jobs. Make mistakes and learn from them. Like I’ve been able to follow my instincts and hone my own integrity through those early moments in my career.

EJ Which has led you to become an Olivier winning actress for your role as Stella in A Streetcar Named Desire. How was that experience?

AV The whole thing was very surreal and, like, really, really lovely. I know it’s very fashionable to say but I was genuinely just happy to be nominated. The evening itself was exciting and being around all the team and celebrating what we’d been working on… I got swept up in it. I hadn’t even thought about what would happen if I won. Then I did. I had a very emotional response because I’d always wanted to be a theatre actor and I’d really built it up in my head. I had this very romantic notion of, like, living in London and working on the West End. So to get an Olivier Award was like recognising that naive, excitable, and fearless childhood dream of mine. I was doing all I’d ever wanted to do and this was celebrating it.

EJ And for Streetcar as well, which is one of the major plays in the pantheon of theatre…

AV Tennessee Williams is my favourite playwright and he’s also very popular for good reason but these plays don’t come around that often. There’s only a handful of actors who can say, "I’ve gotten to be in Streetcar on the West End". So that in itself is monumental to me and I was working with people that I felt very close to and was very proud of. It was such a special experience.

EJ You say that there’s only a handful of actors who are able to say they’ve been in a Tennessee Williams on the West End, but there’s only a handful of actors who are able to say that they’ve led an episode of Black Mirror. What was your reaction to finding out that you were going to be one of those actors?

AV It was very strange. I’d sent off the audition tape and received a call asking if I wanted to do it, and I was a bit like, "Do you want to meet me?" And they were like, "No, do you want to do it?" And all I could say was, "Are you sure?" It was so surreal, I still sometimes don’t feel like I’ve actually done it.

They call Demon 79 ‘Red Mirror’ because it’s different to the other Black Mirror episodes. It has its own flavour that feels really different. Obviously, there’s elements that are distinctly Black Mirror but it’s unique in its story and delivery and I was just really excited about finding out about my character’s journey and her journey with the character of Gaap.

EJ Who was played by the fantastic Paapa Essiedu, of course. What I want to know is, on paper perhaps, the plot may seem a little far fetched, particularly in the world of Black Mirror, maybe a little cartoonish; yet the end product is nothing like that at all and it’s the chemistry between Paapa and yourself that sells it. Was this something you really worked on together or was it natural between the two of you?

AV It was one of those unique experiences where the minute we did the chemistry read, he came in and I knew instantly that this is who Gaap is. It was hard to visualise on paper a character who was funny and clearly charming but also had this…well, this sinister edge to him. But then Paapa walked in and it all made sense. I’ve been a fan of him for so long and he’d been a fan of me and, in that moment, it felt so familiar as if we’d acted together before but we hadn’t. Finding the tone just came from how we fed off each other. It’s funny, it’s very distressing, it’s weird but the turmoil that my character Nida goes through, how much can I push that? Whatever I was giving, Paapa was giving right back and it was a generous exchange; a proper connection.

The director of the episode, Toby Haynes, was aware of that and, yes we workshopped our scenes and ensured we knew what we all wanted to achieve, but we didn’t rehearse it to death, you know? It was important for Toby, and part of what makes it a good episode, is how he was able to capture those exchanges, emotions, and almost improvised energies live. It feels more natural, more distressing, more exciting which achieves that tonal balance between everything.

And we were able to laugh too. Paapa and I would check in with each other once that camera had stopped rolling and we’d just have a laugh. You can’t take these kind of things too seriously, I think.

EJ Striking that tonal balance really hammers home the themes of the episode as well, there’s this idea of bringing in these sort of supernatural and apocalyptic elements as a way to, not only reconcile with identity, but also as a type of outlet for rage, I suppose, towards the very prevalent racism still in England today. Do you want to talk about those themes and how you understand them?

AV I’ve seen Demon 79 a few times now but I remember seeing it at the first screening we did and… I was stunned. And even now, every time I watch it, I feel different things about it and that’s… That’s what Black Mirror does, yes, but it’s also highlighting the variety of experience and perspective that comes with being an immigrant. Those feelings I have each time are representative of those unique experiences. There’s something that every person of colour, every immigrant can connect to.

I’m an immigrant twice - I moved from India to Singapore and then eventually Singapore to the UK. We all have stories. I could spend all day talking about the various micro-aggressions that we face but… You want them not to define you as a person. You want to be able to rise above all that. But it’s not that simple. I think the fact that, for Nida, it’s 1979 and the person that she is, those experiences she has on a daily basis are hard for her to rise from. There’s the obvious things like her colleague who might say something racist that chips away at her but ultimately, it’s the fact that Nida is almost invisible to her world that’s the greatest aggression there is. That’s the greater humiliation. It’s as though she doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of this society, in this world. Who is she? How much is a person like her valued? Then the irony is that, well, she’s the one fighting to save the world. She’s trying to save humanity. But then how much does this world that she’s trying to save actually value her?

When I watched it, I was actually quite… I didn’t expect it to be so triumphant and moving. Gaap and Nida end the episode by going off together into total oblivion which is described as a sort of eternal nothingness, that’s actually better. It’s the more romantic, optimistic version of the world she’s leaving behind.

And it poses the question of how the way we treat people on a daily basis affects their perception of themselves and their understanding of their place in the world. Nida makes herself so small because she’s essentially told to by all these people’s actions. And it is entirely based on her existence as a person of colour. It’s so easily done to people, that accumulation of the everyday diminishing of a person, just choosing not to look at them. Those are the haunting things, and the destructive things and what this episode does is present that to the audience. It says: your actions have people aspiring for oblivion because that’s safer and happier than the environment you have created. You can’t be saved if you don’t treat everyone like they could be a hero.

@anjvasan