Charlie Brooker has revealed Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor was “really happy” for his song lyrics to be changed into pop ones to be performed by Miley Cyrus in the upcoming Black Mirror series.
Global pop star Cyrus stars in the third episode of the fifth instalment of the Netflix programme and plays a pop star whose real life and public life are vastly different in an episode called Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too.
Brooker, creator and writer of the Netflix series, said: “Actually every song that she (Miley Cyrus) performs in this, they’re all Nine Inch Nails songs that we adapted into pop standards, that was actually one thing that was in the script early on that we had to get permission from Trent Reznor to do that, to re-write some of his tracks as upbeat pop songs.”
Rachel, Jack & Ashley Too aka "ashley too the hands free speaker that screams back at you"**(batteries not included) pic.twitter.com/Fbdc08N3u2
— Netflix UK & Ireland (@NetflixUK) May 21, 2019
Talking at a Q&A held in London, Brooker said Reznor “got it straight away”.
He explained: “It was via email and he was really happy, like, pretty quickly. He wanted to see the script and I got to re-write his lyrics in a chirpy way.
“I’m not the best lyricist in the world, in the first thing she’s singing ‘I’m stoked on ambition and verve’, instead of ‘you’re gonna get what you deserve’.”
Co-producer Annabel Jones added: “He thought it was very funny, he found it all, the dark comedy, very entertaining. There are lots of dark concepts in the film and we just enjoyed a childish subversion of them.”
The other two episodes, titled Striking Vipers and Smithereens, feature names including Fleabag and Sherlock star Andrew Scott, Avengers star Anthony Mackie and Topher Grace, who rose to fame as part of American sitcom That ’70s Show.
Black Mirror season five premieres on Netflix on June 5.