Bryan Cranston interview: Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams

The show has the mighty Bryan Cranston involved as an actor and an executive producer.

This marks the second Amazon production that Cranston has pulled double duty on, following on fromSneaky Pete.

Heres how it went…

I think what we all want to know is the genesis of howElectric Dreamscame together.

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It did come together.

I bumped into Michael Dinner, who was a director that I knew, on the Sony lot.

And I thought, well, I love Philip K. Dick, so lets talk about this.

And so we started talking about it more.

Were going to embrace the eclectic nature of that.

Put it in the past.

Put it in the future.

Wherever you wanna go with it.

And that it resonates to current audiences.

That they will have some sort of takeaway with it thats valuable.

And from the start, Philip K Dicks estate the custodians of these stories were up for that?

Theyre executive producers as well.

AndThe Adjustment BureauandTotal Recall, which I did a movie of.

Its history is well documented, and now this is taking a different slant to it.

When you first talked about the short stories?

Its like when Im doing a movie or something.

I wanted to see, because I always want to see, how it affects me.

Does it stimulate my imagination?

And it has to stay with me.

Sometimes if it scares me a little bit, thats a good sign.

But certainly if it stays with me.

Can you say anything about how far its deviated from the original?

Obviously its quite a small, short story.

Yeah,Human Isis adjusted somewhat, but not to a great degree.

It is still about a womans plight.

Weve adjusted her position in it, to give her more of a say.

In the original short story, she was without occupation, if I remember correctly.

And, in this story, we have given her a very high position in a state-run experience.

So, thats going on, and so it speaks to a more current condition.

You know, when he first wrote this, women were housewives a lot.

It was back in the 50s.

And we didnt want that.

We wanted the new infusion of the who and why and how.

So, thats why we wanted to do that.

Just a different name.

Yeah, very very.

Its a dichotomy of a character.

Who is that person?

Can a person really change that much?

Its almost like Walter White in reverse.

[Laugher] How long did it take you to bring up a Walter White reference?

Is it Walter White in reverse?

I certainly dont look at it in that regard.

Its like, Oh, okay.

Im getting a sense here.

If it doesnt, then it stays away.

Could you kind of explain how hands on you are in your executive producer role?

For example, have you helped sort of bring actors on board?

Have you chosen the writers yourself?

I have been working with the other EPs for three and a half years, I think.

Ten different writers, ten different directors, ten different casts its a monumental production.

Logistically, it shouldnt work.

It shouldnt, and yet it does.

My work is mostly reading and noting.

Meetings on the phone.

Ten different outlines, two or three times.

Either twenty to thirty outlines to read and note.

Each episode had at least three drafts each.

Most of them had four or five.Human Ishad twelve.

So every time you have a new draft, youre reading and noting.

And thats really the best place for me to stay.

Into driving the narrative, and my companys whole thrust is about character.

We want to take stories from a characters perspective, as opposed to from a plot perspective.

So,Human Is, for example, has my input on it more than others.

Because I was able to be with the writer Jessica Mecklenburg and our director [Francesca Gregorini].

And the three of us were shaping it to that point.

Swirl it around until it feels right.

And thats the interesting thing about it; art is inclusive, and incredible tolerant.

No one is wrong.

No one, is wrong, in their opinion and how they feel about something, which is great.

And youve got directors who believe that?

Its like, I see it this way.

As you said, its quite a logistical challenge, and quite a big bet financially.

Channel 4 got it, did they?

Or was that a hard meeting?

I never have to work again in my life.

So why would I take on anything that Im not passionate about?

So I have to be passionate about it, or Im not interested.

I wish you all the best of luck, but Im not interested.

Someone else can do a good job on it.

So, with everything that we take on as a project, were so passionately involved in it.

Which is the way it should be!

And then, live with the frustration.

And there is, theres no shortage of frustration on this project or any project.

Its just the nature of how art and commerce come together, and often, clash.

They smack into each other.

Like, Urgh, how can you not see that we need more money for this?

You know what its like.

So you have to figure out how you make that marriage work.

And it is often difficult.

And yet, you do it.

If you believe in the project, make the call.

You get on board.

You pitch to Channel 4, how you envision the series.

And each one of us would chime in at any interval, and you hope you make a sale.

And you hope they give you the chance to tell your story.

How far did you get along with that collaboration, and what kind of changed when Amazon came on?

Um, the thing with AMC was that it became…

I think they haveHumans.

And I think they felt, ultimately, that it was going to conflict withHumansas opposed to compliment.

So, they said, Were already all-in on that show.

So we said, Okay.

First place we went to [after that] was Amazon, and they bought it.

So it wasnt orphaned for long.

How important do you think the success ofBlack Mirrorwas to getting something like this made?

It told that there is an audience for this kind of storytelling.

And I think its a terrific show.

You know, anything is a competition, but I dont really see it that way.

What I see is, like, I dont feel Im in competition with other actors.

And thats not to say, Oh no, no ones in my league.

[Laughter]

Thats not at all what Im saying.

What Im saying is that I dont look at it that way.

For producers, writers.

And if they select me, theyll get a certain thing.

If they select someone else, they will get something else.

And so I just look at it like, Oh, they wanted that.

So its not offensive or anything.

Im really interested that there is an audience for this sort of thing.

AndBlack Mirrorobviously proved that.

And hopefully this will too.

Do you think thats part of the reason [why people are getting into anthology shows]?

No, I dont think that.

Theres different flavours out there that youd like to try.

Sometimes you want to read a novel, and sometimes you want to read a short story.

Sometimes you want to watch a television program, sometimes you want to go to an art museum.

Its not like we only have one avenue to appeal to us in an artist sense.

I think its more cyclical than anything.

And yeah, they couldnt do the old-fashioned stories.

They had to do something with a twist to it.

And have some relevance.

So I look atBlack Mirroras maybe a big brother.

Theres plenty of room for different tastes.

You mentioned this being a passion project.

Could you maybe explain why?

Could you articulate your passion for Philip K. Dick?

Im really fortunate that I get to be a storyteller.

I get to tell stories for a living.

Storytelling is probably your earliest memory.

Dragging a book to your parents lap.

And looking at the pictures as theyre telling you a story.

Its like were enthralled.

But we dont care.

Its so important to us.

I will lay out all this money for you, kindly, tell me a story!

All of you are writing about storytellers.

Its like, this is something thats engrained in the human experience.

That is so wonderful.

We wanna be told a story.

And theres rules to telling stories.

If you move them to indifference, boredom, weve lost.

So you might miss your mark.

They took it, the way they want.

Some art makes you angry.

Some art makes you joyous.

So what about Dick?

I think people are generally curious.

Science fiction is basically for the curious.

So we kind of have an idea about the past.

Were living the present.

What we dont know is the future.

We have hopes and dreams and ambitions, but we dont know.

You hear of someone your age who drops dead.

And then you go beyond that.

I wonder what life would be like for my great great grandchildren.

What are they gonna see?

What will they experience?

Can you remember how you first came across his work?

What was that, 30 years ago?

[Some chatter from the journos] 35 years ago.

I think that was probably, like, What is this world?

And I did a little investigation into that.

I didTotal Recallbecause I was interested in the story.

You did a remake, and now they are redoingBlade Runner.

How do you feel about that, because its such an iconic film in itself?

But these [inElectric Dreams] are mostly stories that havent been adapted before?

The estate has a very close hand on which ones, of the 125 short stories, are available.

So how many of those did you have to choose from?

And, whats interesting is, how are these selected?

Heres three, and theyre short stories, so theyre reading them at their own leisure.

And if none of those attract [the writer], heres three more.

So we can do it in short spurts so its not like, Heres 25!

Which is always an indicator, if a writer lands on something, it means it resonated with them.

They made a connection, and thats the one we should go with.

And how did those writers come together?

Yeah, from different places.

The people that we admired.

Sometimes who we worked with.

Then it became about availability, and who has it.

But a lot of them thought about it like, You know what, I do.

I can keep my creative juices going until I know I need to start this film in three months.

So Ill do this now.

Thats kind of the overarching theme thats spread out.

Has the been any effort to unify them [theElectric Dreamsstories] in any way?

I think the unifier is Philip K Dick.

So we tried to leave it at that, that everything emanated from his source material.

And we encouraged people to change.

Change the language, even.

Are you prepared for the fan reaction?

Like, What have you done to this story?

Could you maybe tease for us which stories have changed the most?

You mentioned before that the writers were allowed to move their stories to the past, for example.

Did anyone take you up on that?

You have to bring it back down.

Um, and offhand I cant think of one.

My brain… Ive got four projects.

Um, but there have been several that have taken liberties.

Not to the extreme to where its unrecognisable, though.

I think theyre maintaining the respect to the source material and moving from there.

Did any of them take a stab at mesh together a number of different stories?

No, yeah, the estate wouldnt want that.

Have there been any issues with the estate, for example, with changing details?

How involved have they been?

And theyre both executive producers, and they have great notes and theyre very encouraging on taking liberties.

You know, its fantastical, and thats what her father was.

And so, in the spirit of that, she has blessed the concept of just going, opening.

Does Isa ever talk about her memories of her dad?

She must have been very young when he died.

Not specifically, as far as, I remember once when he, so to speak.

But in a general sense.

And in talking about the tonality of his work.

And again, to reinforce the nature of experimentation.

Like, What are you doing?

You cant do this!

But if I go into the future, and did whatever, no one could say, What?

Thats not how its going to be!

How dare you?!

Could life be that simple, or that devoid of that human contact?

You cant deny that technology has marched on since he wrote these stories.

Yeah, for example, we are here in the Gillette Building.

They used to make razors here.

They used to make things here, and now they dont make things here.

They make these somewhere else.

Robots make razors now.

Does that worry you, or does that intimidate you, or do you embrace it?

And thats why, in my company, its character character character.

And then, when youre done focusing on developing character, develop more character.

Youve got four projects being developed at the moment.

Is this the one that youre most interested in?

Are other people in your company looking after the others?

Or are you this hands on with everything?

Im working with all four.

I dont play golf.

I dont do anything else but work and be with my family.

Im a lonely, lonely man.

[Laughter]

And whats the play youre doing, Bryan?

Youre doing a play in London, right?

Im gonna do a play, in London, yeah, Im very excited about it.

This is, Lee Hall has adapted that screenplay into a play.

Fake news, and all that.

Making news an entertainment program was a satirist kind of approach.

Its no longer that.

This is the real world.

Bryan Cranston, thank you very much!

Philip K. Dicks Electric Dreams is on Channel 4 and All 4 now.