Rosy McEwen, who stars in the Black Mirror Season 7 episode “Bête Noire,” says her performance as Verity was shaped by a single comment from creator Charlie Brooker that redefined her approach to the character.
The episode follows Maria (Siena Kelly), an ambitious executive at a chocolate company, whose world begins to shift after a former classmate, Verity, appears during a product tasting and later joins her team. What begins as a psychological standoff grows stranger as Verity reveals a device that enables movement between parallel realities. The escalating conflict between them is driven by Verity’s long-held grudge.
“It’s silly and ridiculous and wild,” McEwen said about the episode. “It’s unnerving and weird, but it’s wonderful and campy and over the top.” McEwen said that she and Kelly initially approached the material with a detailed, character-driven mindset—until Brooker stepped in with a more direct interpretation.
“We were asking all these in-depth questions. We had our notebooks out, trying to figure out what was said at school, how this history between them worked,” she said. “Then Charlie said to us, ‘No, they’re just really petty.’ That just released everything for both of us.”
Once that framework was in place, McEwen said the performance came together naturally. “It made sense. They’re not doing this because of some elaborate trauma or complex psychological pattern. They’re just petty. It’s a quality everyone has. Verity just leans into it more than most.”
The character’s ability to bend reality at will is revealed late in the episode, but it’s the emotional tension that drives the story. McEwen said she was drawn to the script from the first read. “That scene where she’s drinking the milk—I thought, ‘I want to do that so badly,’” she said. “The moment I read it, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it. It was a freeing place to be.”
McEwen was cast after submitting an audition tape, followed by an in-person callback and chemistry read with Kelly. She said their connection was immediate. “We found it so easy to do our scenes together. That obviously really helped. And then it actually ended up being one of the calmest, most easygoing sets I’ve ever been on.”
She credited the smooth process to the confidence of the production team. “It’s such a beloved project, and the foundations are already in place. The vision is clear. It’s Charlie’s vision, and everyone knows what that is. It feels calm when everyone’s heading in the same direction.”
Filming began with the episode’s final scene, which McEwen said required an immediate sense of trust. “It was the first scene we shot, so we had to jump right in. There’s always a certain nervous energy at the start, but in this case, we were able to use that. Luckily, me and Siena got on so well from the beginning.”
Director Toby Haynes encouraged both actors to take risks. “He kept saying, ‘Go madder, go weirder,’” McEwen said. “I was trying to find the line between Verity being this believable, sweet person and also very strange. As the takes went on, we got braver.”
McEwen said she didn’t watch the episode ahead of release but trusted the team completely. “They know exactly what they’re doing,” she said. “It’s such a well-organized machine.” A fan of the show long before she joined the cast, she recalled being deeply affected by earlier episodes. “They freaked me out. I’m such a sensitive soul. I couldn’t watch the entire series in one go—it was very much a dip-in-and-out experience.”
Referencing the original Channel 4 run, McEwen mentioned one episode in particular. “That one with the pig, the Rory Kinnear one—I think about that every couple of months. It haunted me. Someone showed it to me and I said, ‘Why have you released that into the ether?’ But that’s the power of it.”
She said the appeal of Brooker’s writing lies in its human detail. “His characters feel real, and the world always feels familiar. That’s the unsettling part. You buy into it so quickly, and then the weirdness creeps up.”
When asked about Brooker’s perspective on technology, McEwen said it’s more open than it might seem. “I actually think his relationship with technology is very positive. I don’t think he’s saying, ‘This is all awful.’ He’s showing us an insight. Our episode, in particular, he described as a romp.”
She described Bête Noire as less focused on gadgets or futuristic anxieties and more driven by human behavior. “It’s not the Rory Kinnear episode. You’re not leaving disturbed. We decided that’s a good thing. There’s room for absurdity and humor. I think that’s Charlie’s point, too—laughing at the absurd is healthy.”
When asked what she would do with Verity’s parallel-universe pendant, McEwen’s ideas stayed close to home. “Really basic stuff like getting all your house chores done. Changing your bed sheets. Or during a lunch break, going to the beach for 10 minutes.”
Even with infinite power, Verity’s motivations remain limited. “There’s that scene where you see all the things she’s done—got together with Harry Styles, became an astronaut—and yet she still comes back to this pettiness from school.”
McEwen hadn’t seen any other episodes from the new season and said the production kept details tightly under wraps. “We were kept in the dark. Ours was filmed first, like a year and a half ago. We didn’t even know who else was in the season. We found out when everyone else did.”
Responding to the idea that Black Mirror had become more American in recent seasons, McEwen said the creative core hadn’t changed. “I hadn’t thought about the British-American dynamic. But at Netflix, everyone really trusts Charlie. The vision is still his. Just because there are episodes set in America or with American actors doesn’t mean it’s lost anything.”
Asked whether she kept any props from the set, McEwen said she didn’t, but she and Kelly formed a lasting bond. “We actually are bonded for life. We adore each other.”
