Season five of Netflix's hugely popular show Black Mirror saw Miley Cyrus return to acting for the first time in three years as Ashley O, a superstar who releases an AI-version of herself which Rachel, a teenage girl with self-esteem issues, soon becomes obsessed with. Speaking about Miley accepting the role in the dystopic TV show at a screening of the new episode, the show's co-writer Charlie Brooker revealed why the series appealed to her.
Season five will be released June 5
He told HELLO! and other publications: "In a dream world we thought it'd be someone like Miley Cyrus but we thought it would be [expletive] stupid talk… an impossible sort of request. But we figured we had nothing to lose by getting the script to her and thought we'd just be ignored… before you knew it we were having a Skype, a chat, then she said she would do it."
READ: Black Mirror's season 5 trailer is here! See the first look at Miley Cyrus in the show
Fellow co-writer Annabel Jones continued: "She's got a very sarcastic sense of humour, she's very acerbic, she's very funny. She delights in subverting things – her career was the Disney pop star who tried to carve out her own identity and as a result has faced a lot of opposition from her label and from her fans in some respect." Charlie added: "I remember her saying, 'Oh it'll [expletive] people off and [expletive] people off is kind of my thing.'" Miley also performs several songs by Nine Inch Nails in the show, and Charlie opened up about rewriting Trent Reznor's lyrics for the Wrecking Ball singer. "I got to rewrite his lyrics in a chirpy way," he explained. "I'm not the best lyricist in the world and she's singing, 'I'm stoked on ambition and verve' instead of, 'You're going to get what you deserve.'"
READ: Fans react to Black Mirror's terrifying first ever interactive episode, Bandersnatch
