‘I didn't think he was a jerk': Paul Giamatti on finding the humanity in his standout ‘Black Mirror' episode

Yahoo

12-05-2025

The only formula for Black Mirror is that there isn't one. 'Eulogy,' the fifth episode of the current season, is essentially an hour-long solo performance by Paul Giamatti. Though he does have a costar in Patsy Ferran, he holds the screen himself for nearly the full hour, acting opposite an avatar (spoiler alert!) as a middle-aged man named Phillip coming to terms to terms with long-buried memories of a lost love.
What's first presented as a simple ask to collect memories soon reveals itself to be a far deeper, more emotional journey, led by Ferran's 'The Guide' through — and into — old photographs. And it takes an actor of Giamatti's caliber — with accolades from the Oscars, the Emmys, the Globes, BAFTAs, SAGs, and more — to keep us riveted.
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Here, Giamatti tells Gold Derby why he empathizes with Phillip, why he likes playing bad guys, and why he was excited to revisit Downton Abbey: 'They finally let me in the house!' (Watch the full interview above).
SEEPaul Giamatti, Chris O'Dowd, Rashida Jones, Cristin Milioti, Jimmi Simpson, and every 'Black Mirror' Emmy acting submission
Gold Derby: You've said the script came to you through your manager. What made you say yes?
Paul Giamatti: First of all, that it was Black Mirror would have been enough. Because I really like that show, and I like things like this. There's a moment in it when [Phillip] says, 'I've sort of had it with this, this is not working,' and [The Guide, played by Ferran] says, 'Do you want to stop?' And he says, 'No.' That was the moment that I went, 'This is cool.' This poor guy is so in conflict with himself. And I thought what a cool way to dramatize somebody's conflict about stuff through the technology.
Did you have any conversations then with [series creator] Charlie Brooker about where you wanted it to go from there? Any changes you wanted to make?
The only thing that needed to change was the character was British, written for an Englishman. Other than that, nothing needed to be changed. I had nothing to offer, except just getting out of the way of it and letting it play itself when we had to do it.
How did you film the scenes where you're transported into your old photos?
None of it is CGI. They're all actual people standing there just frozen. They would freeze for the length of the take. They were all dancers and mimes who could maintain a position, be expressive, and hold it for a really long time. We did a lot of actual work with them so they could stage that, so it was very tricky. The effect of it going 2D to 3D was very complicated, so there was a lot of work that needed to be done before even getting into the studio. They also had to find a guy who looked like me because they weren't going to de-age me. They want to do as little digital stuff as possible, which I thought was great.
What about the scenes when 'The Guide' was just a voice in your head?
Yes, she was there, sitting in the corner, which was great. A lot of actors wouldn't have done that. I wouldn't have expected anything else from her, but it was great to have her there, so it was never like I was alone. I had not quite realized how much I was alone in it. When I first read it, when we came to rehearsal to shoot it, I suddenly thought, Oh, my God! There's a good two-thirds of this, three-quarters of this, I'm alone in here. But once we did it, it didn't feel like that at all.
Knowing what an emotional rollercoaster the episode was going to be, how did you calibrate your performance throughout?
A lot of it's in the writing already. I could see it in the writing and so there's a way in which it's almost like it's a temperature chart. It was really clear where he goes up or down, and he gets upset or doesn't. That was a tricky line. I'm sure there's people who walk away from this thinking the guy is a real jerk. I didn't think he was a jerk. The levels of him being maybe unpleasant at times, that was tricky. But if it's well-written, that's helping you a lot. And the directors were really terrific and were really good at helping modulate it sometimes.
SEEAll 34 'Black Mirror' episodes ranked, including 'USS Callister: Into Infinity' and 'Eulogy'
Was there a specific note or direction they gave you that was helpful?
Actually an interesting thing was that his life is OK. He's not suicidally miserable. He starts in a place where he's OK. He gets taken somewhere he doesn't want to go, opens all this stuff up, and then he's kind of not OK. By the end, I think he's more OK. But it was an interesting thing for them saying to me, the starting point is not one of miserableness. He's got his life. He prunes his roses. He's got some kind of job, and he's lived in this nice place, and he's reached a kind of middle-aged contentment.
What's your takeaway of the ending?
When I saw the actual piece put together, I found it much more hopeful than it was on the page to me when I first read it. When we were actually doing it, I thought, 'Oh, this is terrible what this poor guy is kind of being forced to do.' But then when I saw it, I thought it maybe isn't. It was much more positive than I thought it was going to be. I mean, it's strange that everybody's sitting there with this thing in their head all zoned out at the end. He's the one person who's not, though, which is kind of cool because he doesn't need it at this point anymore. There's some way in which he sees her again, he finds her again. But he also knows it's gone, it's all gone, and she's dead, and it's all in the past.
Why did he agree to participate in this trip down memory lane that he knows is going to be painful for him?
That's what I mean — that's why that moment of my saying 'No, I don't want to stop' was so interesting to me. It's that strange thing that we have, like I can't stop picking at this scab, and when he says 'I haven't thought about her in a long time' I'm not sure that that's true. He can't quite see her the way he'd like to; he can't remember what was real about it, what she really was like anymore. But the other thing that I found interesting is that thing of why does he do it in the first place. I actually said to them, 'This is so strange. Does there need to be some moment of ' but then the more I thought about it the more I thought the interesting thing about this technology is that we just obey it. … Technology is gently coercive like that. We just obey these things. We have to do what they tell us to do. It's really strange.
That to me is at its best when it's asking those questions. What's the message for you from the episode?
I think it's just asking the questions. It's about regret and grief. I keep thinking of this short story I read which is all about a technology event where you can remember everything from the second you're born until the present moment. And the whole point in that story is, is it good to actually remember everything? Maybe we're meant to forget. Maybe we're meant to misremember. Maybe we have to have the narrative wrong sometimes. Maybe we shouldn't know when we were right or wrong. And so there's that question on this one, would he have been better off? Did it really serve some sort of purpose? I think it does ask that question. But then I also just hope it's a kind of moving story — a nice, melancholy story about a guy who's given a second chance.
You also have the finale movie coming this fall; you've said you were surprised to be coming back. Why?
I was a really, really marginal character. So I was a little bit like, "You really want me to come back?" And then I actually do something of great significance. But I loved doing that show the first time around. I love period stuff like that. And you know anything like that I'm a sucker for. And I actually got to be in the house this time!
You're also going to be in the series. What appealed to you about that one?
Science fiction. I love Star Trek. I've been a big Star Trek fan. They came to me with a really great part to play in this really good series. Talk about good writing! And Holly Hunter plays the captain. I was like, I can't say no.
What can you reveal about your character?
I'm a bad guy. I'm a very bad guy. That's what I can reveal! I like being the bad guy. I don't get to play so many out and out bad guys often, which is good. I play sort of ambiguous people often, but I do like to play like an out and out bad guy.
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