‘Cunk on Cinema’: Diane Morgan, Charlie Brooker Tackle the Movies

Philomena Cunk is the star of two previous Netflix shows and has more than a decade of appearances on various BBC programs. So one would think that the people she interviews would have caught on to the bit by now.

And, in fact, they have — because the people behind Cunk, the confidently clueless documentary presenter played by Diane Morgan, have never fully hidden what they’re doing. “We’ve always been up front with the experts that this is a joke,” says Charlie Brooker, who created the character in his 2010s BBC show Charlie Brooker’s Weekly Wipe. “We’ve never been in the business of pranking them — we’ve always said so from the very beginning.”

That subjects go into an interview with Philomena Cunk knowing it’s a comedy show — and then still get caught completely off guard by her inane lines of questioning, malapropisms and tangents about other people in her life — is a testament to how well Morgan plays the character, who never breaks her deadpan demeanor.

“I don’t think it really matters, does it?” Morgan tells The Hollywood Reporter about subjects knowing what they’re getting into. “Because they don’t know what questions they’re going to be asked.”

Morgan’s ability to disarm interviewees, and her delivery of very joke-dense narration and on-camera exposition, are on full display in Cunk on Cinema, a follow-up to previous Netflix shows Cunk on Earth and Cunk on Life. It premieres Nov. 15 on Netflix (and the BBC in the U.K. and Ireland) and sends Philomena on a run through the history of film, featuring interviews with Benedict Cumberbatch, Michael Bay, screenwriter Steven E. de Souza and a number of film historians and academics.

Morgan and Brooker (best known in the U.S. as the creator of Black Mirror) talked with THR about the character’s origins, choosing film as the next subject for Philomena, and the importance of Technotronic’s “Pump Up the Jam” to the Cunk canon. (This interview has been edited and condensed.)

It’s amazing to me that people know you’re playing a character and you’re still able to get the kinds of reactions you do from them.

DIANE MORGAN They don’t get to meet me out of character. I just turn up in the suit and sit down. I don’t make them feel comfortable. The atmosphere is very tense, and it goes on for ages. And obviously, the crew try not to laugh. So even if one of us says something funny, [the interviewee] might not notice that it’s funny in the moment because no one’s laughing. It just flies past. So they seem to panic a little bit that it’s not working. But I can see there are definitely bits that are working. They just don’t feel like they’re working in the moment, because it feels very dead and terrifying.

CHARLIE BROOKER We’ve always been up front with the experts that this is a joke. We’ve never been in the business of pranking them. We’ve always said from the very beginning when we started doing [the character]. It was called “Moments of Wonder,” the strand that that was within Weekly Wipe. In the very first one of those, there’s one of my favorite moments ever. A man is very earnestly explaining how time works scientifically, and you [Diane], while he’s talking, turn around and look down the lens, like really bored and upset to be there, having to listen to this.

We had to tell that guy — we told him that was going to happen [and to] keep going. So they’re primed. They know that that Philomena is Diane, and they know that this is a comedy show. What they don’t know in any way what we’re going to ask them, and we can’t see quite where it’s gonna go. We’re not like Borat and [other] things that are using the prank format to expose something in the interviewee. We’re actually celebrating experts in a way. The joke for us is always on Philomena.

Can you talk a little more about the character’s origin? She’s been in a lot more things that people outside the U.K. might not have seen.

MORGAN It started in little two-minute sections [on Weekly Wipe]. They were TV reviews that I would do with another character called Barry Shitpeas [played by Al Campbell], where we would just review things, and it went well. I was told that it might not go well because everyone loves Charlie, and they don’t like anything that isn’t Charlie. So I was sort of terrified that there was going to be a huge backlash. But they were very nice. It’s a nice way to test out a character. You don’t often get the luxury of doing that.

BROOKER Diane is so naturally funny that at some point we went, “We could give this character a wider thing to do.” We thought, could we give Philomena her own mini inspiring documentary thread in the show? Then we thought maybe she could also interview real experts. The very first subject you did was time, which is quite a big topic.

MORGAN It was complete ripoff of physicist Brian Cox’s documentary that had just gone out. It’s always good to spoof something. You’ve got a template for something; now just take the piss out of the whole thing.

BROOKER I think we pitched a weekly show that was just Philomena [to the BBC], and they were like, we can’t quite commit to that yet. But we’ve got a season of shows coming up because it was the anniversary of Shakespeare’s [death]. They said why don’t you try doing Cunk on Shakespeare as a one-off? So we did that, and that then set the template for the show as a whole.

Are there specific people that inform how you portray her, or is it just more the conventions of documentary presenting?

MORGAN It’s sort of me if I had no social skills, but also, I can use all those tropes that other documentary makers use. They all do the same things. They all walk in the same way. They all use their hands in the same way. They all structure a sentence in the same way. They all go on a journey. You can use all that. It’s basically me, but taking the piss out of presenters.

How did you decide on the history of film for her next topic?

BROOKER We’d done Shakespeare, the history of Britain, the history of the Earth, and then we did Cunk on Life, which like the meaning of life and philosophy and biology. We were slightly like, well, what else is there?

Initially, we had a couple of competing thoughts. One was to do a travelog across America. There was going to be lots of stuff for the anniversary of you guys kicking our asses, but then we thought actually there’ll be too much of that around. So we reserved the right to do that [another time]. Then we were thinking about the arts — could we do Cunk on art and film and music? If you do film, not only is there a lot to talk about, but there are a lot of highbrow documentaries about cinema that are treated with such reverence. It’s a different thing from doing history. It’s a different type of expert you’re going to get, and it’s a different bit of audience awareness. The more we talked about it, the more we thought that’s actually a really fruitful topic.

MORGAN It can be quite pretentious as well. That’s what excites me about it.

Diane, do you need to do a lot of prep work in order to get everything down in in the deadpan Philomena style, or has it kind of become second nature to you now?

MORGAN There’s more prep in the interview sections, because I like to try and second guess what they’ll ask me in case they ask me something, which they often do. The pieces to camera, I’m used to that now. People say, “Oh, you’re very deadpan.” But I think that’s just my face. If I don’t animate it, it just doesn’t do much. It looks quite sad. So that’s quite easy for me, the face thing and the voice thing.

In Cunk on Cinema, it seemed like there was a point where Benedict Cumberbatch started to improvise a little bit in your interview. But some of the other folks, like Steven E. de Souza and Michael Bay seemed a little more caught out by the absurdity of some of your questions.

BROOKER Steven de Souza, I think, was one of the ones who agreed really quickly [to be on the show]. He was very familiar with the character, and I think he said something like, “I’m a Cunk head,” so he was definitely on board. He absolutely got the assignment in that he was earnestly bemused by how he’s going to answer these questions. He seems genuinely flummoxed. Michael Bay, I think you were saying, maybe didn’t fully get your accent a lot of the time.

MORGAN I think he had a bit of trouble with the accent. One of my first questions was, “How much did your trainers cost?” And of course, you call trainers sneakers, don’t you?

So maybe he was thinking of a personal trainer or something?

MORGAN Yeah. There were a few that he was just like, “I don’t know what you’re saying.” But even that is funny, isn’t it? Someone just admitting they don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.

I want to ask a couple questions just about the whole Cunk project. First are the recurring references to “Pump Up the Jam.” Where did that idea come from, and why that particular song?

BROOKER In Cunk on Britain, we had a running joke where it was [cutaways to] Brush Strokes, a British sitcom from the 1980s which had a theme song by Kevin Rowland of Dexy’s Midnight Runners. We would show the opening sequence of Brush Strokes almost in full.

When we did Cunk on Earth, it was a co-production with Netflix, and we thought people outside Britain aren’t going to know what the hell Brush Strokes is. What could we possibly replace it with? I can’t remember where the suggestion of “Pump Up the Jam” came from, but it was kind of perfect.

MORGAN I love it. I didn’t appreciate it at the time.

BROOKER Now you’re into it.

MORGAN It’s a great song, isn’t it?

[Editor’s note: There’s a bit more talk about the song and a novelty cover version that’s also used in Cunk on Cinema.]

BROOKER Then there are the captions that come up that get OK’d by Technotronic.

MORGAN Really?

BROOKER Oh yeah. It’s part of the licensing deal, as I understand it. I may be wrong, but I think someone at Technotronic Towers …

MORGAN Oh my god.

BROOKER …has to look at these and go, “Yes, OK.”

MORGAN [Laughs] “Yeah, that’s fine, I like that.” Oh my god, that’s great. I didn’t know that.

BROOKER So there’s still somebody managing the jam pump.

Lastly, I just want to know if Philomena’s mate Paul is getting the help he needs.

MORGAN [Laughs] God, I love those Paul bits. They’re one of my favorite bits. Some people say, “Will he ever make an appearance?” But I don’t think you should ever see him, should you? It’s one of those characters — unless it’s Paul McCartney.

BROOKER I dream of getting Cunk to interview Paul McCartney. He’s had quite a life, hasn’t he, her mate Paul? His autobiography would be amazing.

MORGAN You could write that. People would buy it.

BROOKER It’s one of my favorite bits. There’s a really good one in this. I quite like it when there’s a Paul anecdote that goes on for far too long. There’s a good one to Michael Bay, who was very patient. Do people react differently when they hear that coming now, the interviewees?

MORGAN I think they do. I think there’s a [feeling of], “She’s mentioning Paul!” They’re getting the full experience.