'Black Mirror' Charlie Brooker at the opening night of SXSW Sydney (Photo by Brendon Thorne/Getty Images for SXSW Sydney)

‘Our cast were already worried about it’: Charlie Brooker on the ‘eerie’ timing of ‘Black Mirror’

In the first episode of Black Mirror’s sixth season, titled Joan is Awful, a streaming company is found to be using the likeness of actors to portray dramatic versions of the lives of everyday citizens, with Annie Murphy, Salma Hayek, and Cate Blanchett licensed to play the titular Joan across different ‘fictive levels’.

It premiered on Netflix, along with four other standalone stories, on June 15, one month prior to the commencement of the SAG-AFTRA strike in the US, spurned in part by the pote...