When we meet, Morgan has also just gone viral for chatting to J-Lo at the Stella McCartney show in Paris. So, before we get to anything else, what on earth were they chatting about?<\/p>\n
Diane Morgan Well she\u2019d just done a film with Brett Goldstein, so I told her that I used to do standup with him and that I enjoyed the film.
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Charlie Brooker Is that the best you could do?
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DM Well it\u2019s something isn\u2019t it? What should I have said? Asked her what she\u2019s doing later?<\/p>\n
Who\u2019s the most unlikely person you\u2019ve been in conversation with, Charlie?
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CB Oh, I know the answer to this! It\u2019s Kanye West. It was a couple of years ago. I actually had dinner with him. I don\u2019t know if this is an anecdote for public consumption, really, but \u2026 it was quite a bizarre and sad occasion. I ended up thinking: \u201cHe\u2019s not well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reel deal\u2026 Diane Morgan as Philomena Cunk. Photograph: BBC\/Pacesetter Productions\/Olly Courtney<\/p>\n
Why did you meet up? This is actually exactly the kind of material my editor asked for in this piece. Did you have any idea Philomena Cunk would be such an enduring character? Mirth control \u2026 Diane Morgan and Charlie Brooker. Photograph: Antonio Olmos\/The Guardian<\/p>\n Was Diane\u2019s audition for Philomena Cunk the first time you met? Philomena Cunk was supposed to be a posh character originally, right? Charlie Brooker (centre) and Diane Morgan with Cunk on Cinema executive producer Sam Ward. Photograph: \/BBC\/Pacesetter Productions\/Matt Kennedy<\/p>\n There are lots of jokes about AI in these new episodes \u2013 mainly Cunk challenging experts by saying she\u2019s asked AI. Do either of you use AI? It has started speaking its own language, though, according to reports \u2026 Jape expectations \u2026 Diane Morgan and Charlie Brooker. Photograph: Antonio Zazueta Olmos<\/p>\n Did you ever think technology would advance this rapidly?
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CB He wanted to meet because he\u2019d seen a Black Mirror episode and liked it very much \u2026
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DM Was it one of the earlier funny ones?
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CB [Deliberately ignoring her] I can tell you which one it was. It was called Metalhead<\/a>. It\u2019s got your mate Maxine Peake in it and a robot dog.
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DM Honestly, how dead inside would you have to be to get a robot dog instead of a lovely little rescue dog?
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CB But a robot pet wouldn\u2019t die! That\u2019s the reason I\u00a0don\u2019t have a pet in London, because I get very sad pre-emptively imagining that pet getting squashed.
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DM When you say you \u201cimagine\u201d it, what do you mean? Because you told me once that you had that thing where you can\u2019t see images in your mind [aphantasia]. So if I say: \u201cPicture a blue horse\u201d, everyone else pictures it but you can\u2019t.
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CB I think I can picture things. It\u2019s just not like on telly where they have a flashback.
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DM It is for me. It\u2019s full surround sound, and so much\u00a0detail.
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CB [Closing his eyes] If I think of a blue horse, I don\u2019t see it \u2026 It\u2019s more like my brain is describing it to me.
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DM That\u2019s fascinating, isn\u2019t it? The man who wrote Black Mirror can\u2019t picture a blue horse! Whereas mine\u2019s got reins on, it\u2019s got facial expressions, it\u2019s going \u2026 [Morgan blows an enormous raspberry while circling her head round in a convincingly horse-like manner].
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CB OK, what\u2019s it doing right now? Is it lifting its tail? Can you see its bum?
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DM Well I can now. Now you\u2019ve said that.<\/p>\n
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CB Did they say: \u201cCan it be mainly about their psychic projections of horses?\u201d
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DM It is interesting, though. Have you been diagnosed with that or \u2026
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CB Diagnosed with what?
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DM No imagination.
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CB Critics might say I have, yes.
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DM Do you have dreams?
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CB I definitely see things in dreams and imagine that they\u2019re real. Once I had a dream where a little circle appeared to signal a reel change, like when you\u2019re watching an old film on TV. And the dream itself was about teachers at the school who were assassinating people. So fuck you with your \u201cyou can\u2019t see anything in your mind\u2019s eye\u201d nonsense. I think our brains all have different operating systems, like Windows or Mac OS or Linux.
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DM There\u2019s actually a man who got to 40-odd and discovered he only had half a brain.
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CB Was his name Jacob Rees-Mogg?
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DM He was actually an accountant. And he\u2019d been living totally fine with half a brain. They were like, how can this be? Because you think of all the areas of the brain, like, the hippocampus and, er, the other areas of the brain \u2026 I just think that\u2019s incredible. That basically you don\u2019t really need a brain. I actually think your brain\u2019s more like an aerial. So we are actually in the cloud and we\u2019re being livestreamed to the receptors in our skulls. And when you die, your body dies, but your consciousness just goes back to the cloud.
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CB That\u2019s beautiful, actually. What\u2019s the point of that, though?
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DM Well, what\u2019s the point of anything? Don\u2019t go pulling at that thread! Right, come on, let\u2019s start!<\/p>\n
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DM No, I was told by people on the programme that I would get a huge backlash because I wasn\u2019t Charlie. They said brace yourself for a lot of shit on social media. Because people just want Charlie. Anything that isn\u2019t Charlie is just people going: \u201cWhere\u2019s Charlie, this is fucking shit!\u201d
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CB And now it\u2019s the other way round!<\/p>\n
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CB Yeah! Oh, actually, no! Because she\u2019s got an anecdote about me being horrible at the Edinburgh festival.
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DM Everyone in my family used to read your Guardian column. It started with my dad. He rarely laughed at anything, but he would be crying tears reading your column. And I\u2019d be like: \u201cWhat\u2019s so funny?\u201d So he\u2019d read a bit of it and we\u2019d all laugh, as\u00a0a family, together. And then they started printing your photo.
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CB And that ruined it for you?
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DM It meant I recognised you at the Edinburgh festival. So I went over and was like: \u201cYou\u2019re Charlie Brooker!\u201d And you said: \u201cYeah, what do you want?\u201d So I said: \u201cI read your column, it\u2019s really funny.\u201d And\u00a0you said: \u201cSo?\u201d
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CB Surely I was joking. Sometimes when people come up and say: \u201cI really love Black Mirror\u201d, I reply, \u201cWhat\u2019s wrong with you?\u201d It\u2019s just a joke!
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DM Looking back, of course it was a joke. But I didn\u2019t know that then. I was mortified. I thought: \u201cHe hates me!\u201d and I was crushed. I couldn\u2019t even think about him for years. When the auditions came up for Philomena, I knew I wanted it more than anything \u2026 but that Charlie hated me. Whereas actually you didn\u2019t give a shit.<\/p>\n
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CB We used to get people going: \u201cOh you\u2019re mocking working-class accents,\u201d because of the Barry Shitpeas character. So the idea was to add an airhead, middle-class, yummy-mummy, Chelsea-tractor cupcake blogger to the show. Hence the name Philomena Cunk.
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DM You\u2019d never get someone called Philomena in Bolton \u2013 you\u2019d get your head kicked in.
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CB I was watching all the audition tapes and wasn\u2019t quite sure who the character was.
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DM Luckily I\u2019d got the guts up to ask if I could do it in my own accent because I thought that was funnier.
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CB When I saw you doing it in your flat, fucking depressed, unimpressed-with-everything tone, I\u00a0was doubled over with laughter.
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DM Ah, that\u2019s so sweet \u2026 you\u2019re forgiven for the Edinburgh thing now.
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CB The strange thing about Cunk is she\u2019s sort of weirdly in charge of things, even if she\u2019s speaking to a professor or whatever \u2026
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DM We interviewed Michael Bay for this new series and the crew were a bit terrified of him because they\u2019re big, big fans. But I wasn\u2019t bothered. Because [whispers] I don\u2019t really watch a lot of films. It actually helps that I don\u2019t know or care who these experts are. Actually, I think we confused Michael Bay because I asked him how much he paid for his trainers and he thought I meant actual people who trained him. He said I was asking odd questions.
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DM I often talk about my mate Paul, though, so that might get confusing.<\/p>\n
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CB I use it when I\u2019m somewhere I don\u2019t know and want to find, say, a good barbecue restaurant that doesn\u2019t serve pork. And then when you turn up it no longer exists. But other than that, no. I would never use it to help write something.
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DM They\u2019re trying to force it on you, aren\u2019t they? But I\u00a0won\u2019t even let it do that [Mimics flicking something away].
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CB I\u2019m a bit annoyed that there\u2019s new technology and I don\u2019t like it. I think it\u2019s more that I don\u2019t like the people who are making it. Having said that, I\u00a0think the idea that it\u2019s going to take over the world and destroy us all is a bit far-fetched.<\/p>\n
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CB Yeah, but it\u2019s just been fed on scraps of itself, hasn\u2019t it? It\u2019s a bit like when we started feeding cows on scraps of cow, and in the end they all got mad cow disease. So AI might look like it\u2019s talking in some advanced language but actually all it\u2019s saying is [sticks out tongue and waggles his head]: \u201cBraaaappurgglefluuuurrrk!\u201d<\/p>\n
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CB Not really. Our Alexa recently updated and started speaking in a very human voice, which really freaked my son out. It was like, \u201cHey, yeah man, we can do that if you like\u201d \u2026 a bit uncanny valley. We\u2019ve had to change its voice back to the previous setting. When really what we should be doing is taking it out into the garden and smashing it with a shoe.<\/p>\n
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