Was Andrew Scott in Black Mirror? All about the actor’s role in the dystopian sci-fi series

Andrew Scott, the guy who turned everyone’s knees to jelly as the “Hot Priest” in Fleabag, has been on a roll lately. The Irish actor has recently been seen as the star of Netflix’s Ripley and is now one of the most liked actors of his time. His performance in All of Us Strangers and Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery has brought him new heights, thus piquing the viewers' interest in his past acting credits.

One of the debates taking place online is whether Andrew Scott appeared in the acclaimed dystopian series Black Mirror. This question is blowing up because Scott is collecting many award nominations these days. And with all these big projects lined up, plus sharing screen time with Daniel Craig, viewers are digging into every corner of his career.

Turns out, Andrew Scott did show up in Black Mirror. Let’s explore in detail Scott’s gig in the cult sci-fi anthology.

Andrew Scott’s Black Mirror appearance: The Smithereens episode explained

Andrew Scott appeared in the Black Mirror series. He was the main character, Chris, in the fifth season episode Smithereens, which was released on Netflix on June 5, 2019. This role also brought him an Emmy nomination for the most outstanding guest actor in a drama series. Despite the fact that Andrew Scott's participation in this 70-minute episode represents his one and only appearance in the anthology series, it is still one of the most frequently mentioned episodes in the history of Black Mirror.

The character Chris Gillhaney, a London rideshare driver who is clearly carrying around a truckload of emotional baggage. At first, it comes off as a standard hostage drama, since Chris grabs an intern from a massive social media company, Smithereen, and then demands to talk to the big boss, Billy Bauer.

Turns out, Chris isn’t just being a random psycho. He has got his demons. He was absolutely glued to social media, like a lot of us, checking Smithereen the second he woke up and right before crashing out at night. One day, he is driving, hears that dreaded notification ping, glances at his phone, and gets into a car crash. His fiancée dies. The truth revealed here changes the hostage scenario from a thriller to a profoundly personal tragedy about the addiction to technology and the price humanity has to pay for being constantly connected.

Under the direction of James Hawes, who had earlier directed the celebrated Black Mirror episode Hated in the Nation, Smithereens takes place predominantly in just one location, a car in a field where police surround it. This very tight space compels the audience to scrutinise Scott very closely as the character Chris goes through the phases of madness, despair, and mourning. The narrative has a lot of long dialogues that let the actor Scott demonstrate how well he can present difficult feelings, going from being furious with the tech world to being pitying himself for being the cause of the death of his fiancée.

Meanwhile, Damson Idris shows up as Jaden, this poor intern who just wanted a normal day, and instead gets roped into Andrew Scott's meltdown. Then there’s Topher Grace, playing Billy Bauer. The Smithereen company is basically every giant social media platform mashed together. The big showdown doesn’t happen face-to-face; it’s this tense phone call between Chris and Billy, and that’s the emotional core of the story. Chris finally dumps all his guilt on the one guy he blames for making our phones so addictive.

The episode’s ending remains ambiguous on purpose. It was either Chris, Jaden, or both that police snipers shot in the mix-up, with the reactions from the main characters being hard to interpret, and the people in general hardly reacting at all. This ambiguity plays out the episode's themes about how fast society moves on from tragedies. The whole point seems to be that everyone just shrugs and scrolls on, barely registering something as huge as life or death. That’s how things go in the age of infinite content.

Andrew Scott's role in the Black Mirror episode was decisive in his career direction. The episode hit in 2019, right when he was blowing up thanks to his role as the hot priest in Season 2 of Fleabag. That gig scored him big-deal nominations (Golden Globe, SAG) and made him a household name overnight. But what’s crazy is how his Black Mirror role proved he is not just the charming, tormented priest guy; he can carry a whole episode on his back, playing a super complicated lead.

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Even for the critics who thought the episode was mainly flawed, the performance by Andrew Scott was still very much appreciated. Watching him swing from this jittery, desperate hostage-taker to a broken, grief-soaked mess was impressive.

Smithereens is probably the most down-to-earth Black Mirror episode. It features a regular tech and the everyday doom spiral of social media addiction. It’s all about how these companies build apps to hijack your brain, turning notifications into little dopamine bombs. Audiences were divided, though. Some missed the usual Black Mirror sci-fi insanity, but others liked that it was actually about something happening right now, not just some far-off dystopia.

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