‘Mrs. Davis’ cinematographer Joe Anderson was inspired by everything from Looney Tunes to ‘Pee-wee’s Big Adventure’ [Exclusive Video Interview]

Christopher Rosen
·5 min read
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The very premise of “Mrs. Davis” all but encouraged the Peacock show’s creative team to embrace their pop culture influences. Co-created by Tara Hernandez and Damon Lindelof, “Mrs. Davis” is about the world’s most powerful artificial intelligence algorithm and a nun named Simone (Betty Gilpin), who the computer programs tasks with its destruction by sending her on a quest to find the Holy Grail. “Algorithms love cliches,” Wiley (Jake McDorman), Simone’s ex – who happens to lead a group of male resistance fighters like he’s “Fight Club” figure Tyler Durden – says at one point.

“It’s such a pastiche,” “Mrs. Davis” cinematographer Joe Anderson tells Gold Derby in an exclusive video interview. “The show deals with cliches – like when you do a Google search, the very first topic that comes up. Some of the writing toys with that idea. So we kind of leaned into some of these kind of obvious references, but tried to not feel like we’re stealing too much from any particular project.”

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SEEBetty Gilpin interview: ‘Mrs. Davis’

Anderson started his career in independent films like “Simon Killer,” “Christine,” “Don’t Think Twice,” and “The Old Man and the Gun.” It was that acclaimed David Lowery feature starring Robert Redford that caught the eye of “Mrs. Davis” director Owen Harris.

“It’s a funny thing because the show is called ‘Mrs. Davis,’ which is an algorithm, but we never get to see it, we never get to hear it. We never get to see code or anything. So imagining Mrs. Davis was very tricky,” Anderson explains. “That was one of the funny challenges: having a main character that you never get to actually see or hear.”

Simone almost exclusively talks with Mrs. Davis through a proxy – another Mrs. Davis user who relays information given by the algorithm through an earpiece. Capturing that form of communication, however, is something Anderson had done previously in the Lowrey film.

“We kind of wanted that movie to feel not totally perfect or technically pristine. We wanted to have a lot of character,” Anderson says of the 2018 film. “There was one shot that happened where it was, Redford driving a car, me in the backseat, and the director, David Lowery in the front seat. We just went drove around Texas for about an hour grabbing kind of shots of Redford’s character, who has just robbed a bank and he has an earpiece connected to the police scanner. So he’s one step ahead of the police. And there’s a shot where I was just grabbing focus, the camera is rolling, and I zoomed in on the earpiece, grabbed focus, and zoomed out. David Lowery loved that moment and kept that in the movie. It’s also in the trailer. So I think when Owen Harris was trying to find an American cinematographer to work with – because he’s a Brit and this was his first big long-term project in the U.S. – ‘The Old Man and the Gun’ came across his desk. I think there’s just something about that shot that kind of hooked him. So we were kind of able to bring that to ‘Mrs. Davis.’”

SEE Owen Harris interview: ‘Mrs. Davis’ director

Anderson served as the cinematographer on four of the eight “Mrs. Davis” episodes, including the elaborate pilot, the pivotal fifth episode where a lot of the show’s mystery surrounding the Holy Grail is revealed, and the finale.

“The screenplay was pretty unique in that the screen direction was very elaborate,” he says of the show. “A lot of the discussion we had during prep was about how we translate these amazing descriptions into things that appear on camera. And a lot of that was the personality of the camera. This was not ever set up as kind of as a dark, mysterious show – though, of course, there are elements of that.”

In the pilot alone, Anderson notes, there’s an action scene set in 1300s France, a wild chase in the present day that borders on something Chuck Jones might have created for Looney Tunes, and references to acclaimed works from top auteurs like David Lynch (“Wild at Heart”) and David Fincher (“Fight Club”).

“For me, ‘Pee Wee’s Big Adventure’ was a big reference too,” he adds. “So we kind of threw all that stuff into the stew and let it simmer a bit. That was the fun creative part.”

“Mrs. Davis” ends with Simone completing her quest and almost literally riding off into the sunset. The show then returns to a key location, a donut shop in Reno, Nevada. There, a derelict windmill that Mrs. Davis had previously encouraged users to manually operate appears to move on its own for the first time in years. The show cuts to the credits, leaving viewers to consider the implications of what it all means.

“It was just an iconic shot,” Anderson says of the final image. “It’s a beautiful thing that they came up with in the script and it’s such a pleasure to kind of be able to shoot… it’s just a wonderful little bit of mystery right at the end there that dazzles people. Because the show was a magic trick.”

All episodes of “Mrs. Davis” are streaming on Peacock.

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