Photo of Warren Ellis by Gage Skidmore; source: Wikipedia

In his newsletter Orbital Operations, today writer Warren Ellis states that he was approached to play the role of mysterious author Jerome F. Davies in the Netflix movie Black Mirror: Bandersnatch:

“True story: I was asked to play the role of the mysterious author Jerome F Davies in BLACK MIRROR: BANDERSNATCH. They asked me in late March 2018, for an early April shoot.”

An innovative, interactive horror film that allows viewers to make choices for the main character, Black Mirror: Bandersnatch follows video game programmer Stefan Butler (played by Fionn Whitehead) in his efforts to create a video game based on the “choose your own adventure” style book Bandersnatch written by Davies, who is played in the film by real-life video game designer Jeff Minter.

An influence on Butler, Davies is a tragic figure who only appears in the film via documentary footage and photographs.

Ellis goes on to state that, while grateful for the opportunity to play the role of Davies, his commitments for another Netflix production, the animated series Castlevania, which Ellis writes, prevented his participation. Ellis jokingly notes that “I was almost ‘that thing you have to look up on a wikipedia page.’”

In addition to writing for Castlevania, Ellis is also acclaimed for his comics work, including such titles as Transmetropolitan, The Authority, Trees, and most recently Cemetery Beach, as well as for his prose novels such as Crooked Little Vein and Gun Machine.