Black Mirror has already featured some big name guest directors, and this season is no exception with Hollywood A-lister Jodie Foster taking the helm.
This wouldn’t be the first time the actress has directed a Netflix original — she’s also worked on House of Cards and Orange is the New Black.
This time, the Silence of the Lambs star has directed an episode called “Arkangel” for season four of the cult satirical drama, which stars Rosemarie DeWitt (La La Land), Brenna Harding (The Code) and Owen Teague (Bloodline) and was written by series creator Charlie Brooker.
Not much else is known about it, except that, in line with all other Black Mirror episodes, it will tell a standalone story.
Jodie herself recently revealed some specifics, however, when British talk show host Jonathan Ross drilled her for more details.
“It is very much about a mother-daughter relationship and that kind of beautiful and troubling symbiotic bond between the two,” she told him, according to Digital Spy. “I feel that has a lot of personal relevance to my own life.”
Jodie then went into more detail about her relationship with her own mother Evelyn, who is currently battling dementia.
“We are very close. She is not really with us in the mind. She has dementia, but I think she is very content in her life,” said Jodie. “She watches a lot of movies and she eats a lot of food, so they are two things that she always loved.
“I don’t think [she still recognizes me] and that’s hard and also really beautiful to be able to know that at the end of your parent’s life that you are there for them and that you are the last face that they will ever see.”
“I think that is a gift. They gave you this tremendous gift and you get to give that back to them over the course of their life and that’s a wonderful thing too, it’s painful but it’s wonderful.”
How much of her own mother-daughter bond will make it into the episode is yet to be seen, but Jodie did go a little further in an interview with Empire magazine. There she described the episode as “raw and real, like an indie movie,” putting it in stark contrast with other season four episodes such as “USS Callister,” a colorful riff on Star Trek that can be seen in the trailer.
Season four of Black Mirror is expected to launch on Netflix later this year.
Are you intrigued by Jodie’s involvement?