It’s San Diego Comic-Con time and an exciting new series called “Dark/Web” will be all the talk! Amazon Prime’s exciting new series will hook the audience right away with its character development and preying on our fears about ridesharing. Actor, Producer, Director Michael Nardelli is at the helm and familiar names like Zelda Williams, Clare Kramer, Julie Benz, and Nicholas Brendan are on the screen.
Attendees of Friday’s “Dark/Web” panel at 1:30 PM will get the chance to meet the show’s stars and creators. Let’s meet show creator Michael Nardelli as he took time out of his busy Comic-Con schedule to chat.
Colleen Bement: Your new series “Dark/Web” looks as scary as it does exciting. What are you allowed to share about this cool new project?
Michael Nardelli: “Dark/Web” is an 8-episode anthology series with a twist. Well more than one twist. But it’s different from other anthologies in that there’s a connective tissue that ties everything together – in much the same way that we ourselves are all separate but connected by the internet and social media these days. I’m glad you think it’s scary – it should be! We (the filmmakers) all feel this new tech-crazed world we’re now living is a bit scary as well. “Dark/Web” is definitely a cautionary tale about what’s out there. Some stories are about the dark web itself, and some stories on the show are metaphors for the web simply being a dark place, generally. And that definitely includes social media!
CB: Since you’re a self-proclaimed nerd, is this role pretty much right up your alley? How did you decide you wanted to take on the role of “James” in the series?
MN: Yeah, just being on “Dark/Web” was right up my alley. It’s the kind of story I’d want to watch, being someone who is a bit drawn to darkness in storytelling and exploring the challenges and horrors of modern living in that metaphorical way that genre stories do best. As for James, Mario Miscione and I started developing the characters and writing the main thrust of the story. Other writers came in to do some of the anthologies, and we developed those scripts with them. All along – I’m an actor of the same age most of our characters are – so of course, I knew I wanted to act in the thing.
The more we wrote and developed, I was drawn to James the most. It’s not the showiest role in the series, but I felt like it might light people finally see me, more than parts I’d played in the past had, and how “me” fits into a story like “Dark/Web” – the kind of story I seek out in film and tv and books. James is a bit goofy, a bit serious, a bit lost – he felt real and relatable. He has a subtle but relatable arc about settling into your skin in your 30s and making a choice.
CB: What was the development process for creating “Dark/Web?”
MN: Developing the show was quite fun and collaborative. It did feel artistically rewarding – like adding layers of oil to a painting. It started with my germ of an idea of doing an anthology show that was more than the sum of its parts. That could be satisfying if you saw only one episode, but offered much more if you follow the clues and stay on the trail. I knew I wanted to focus on young adults, post-college, sort of assessing their place in the world once the realities start settling in of jobs, aging, love, loss. The initial themes and feelings in my head about the show were very much in the vein of “The Big Chill.” Obviously, it was going to lean into horror and sci-fi and thrills, but that was the initial idea or structure.
Mario Miscione and my brother Tim Nardelli – we had a great time making the Netflix film “Circle” several years ago. We started talking about what this new anthology format could be. They both brought so many awesome, crazy, creepy ideas into the mix. We talked for weeks about what it could be, and what the centerpiece would be that connected all these ideas. Eventually, we honed in on the real-life dark web. We knew it’d be a fertile place to pull stories from and we knew that our generation would have very specific feelings and point of views about the dark web and the internet in general.
CB: You are also a successful producer and director with your film “Another Happy Day”. When you started out in the filmmaking business, did you want to be in front of or behind the camera?
MN: I always wanted to be an actor. I grew up on film and books and video games. There was never ever one single other option than telling stories, even though I kept that sort of a secret for a while. I grew up in really small towns – there were no other actors or artists in my family at the time. So for me to proclaim that acting and directing and all that stuff was my dream seemed kind of embarrassing or crazy at the time. Luckily I got over that! But even when I was really, really young – I’d get my friends together and make short films. Or fo film projects for class. I’d write and “direct” and edit and act in them. So even at a young age I was still just basically doing a smaller version of what I do now. I love it!
CB: What comic book are you currently reading? What video game are you into lately?
MN: I’m reading Saga by Bryan K. Vaughn right now. I’m an enormous Y: The Last Man fan!!! And Saga is living up to all my expectations! I also recently read From Hell by Alan Moore. Wow, that’s a graphic novel that will change you. Everything about it was transformative; the artwork, the structure, the attention to detail. I love comics because they get away with so many things you’d never be able to do in film. There’s a montage at the top of episode five of “Dark/Web” that was very much inspired by the feeling I get when a character is introduced in comics. As for video games, the new Smash Bros! I slay as Yoshi! I slay. I slay. I slay!!!
Written By Colleen Bement
