GEN:REF

You've said this started as something personal. How much of Adam is you?

There's definitely a piece of me in Adam Kessler — I'll leave it to viewers to guess which parts. But more than that, Adam speaks to something a lot of us feel right now: a kind of hidden fatigue, cynicism, even anger, that gets filtered out the moment it reaches a screen. Sit at the pub, or round a barbecue, or over dinner with close friends, and people say what they actually think. Watching a fictional character get to say those things out loud, unfiltered, is oddly validating. It's refreshing to see that kind of honesty permitted on screen.

These characters could easily have been caricatures. Was staying grounded a deliberate choice?

Completely deliberate. None of these characters are over-the-top — they're people who could genuinely exist in today's world. I want viewers to recognise these traits from their own lives, from people they know, maybe even from themselves. That's what makes the series both reassuring and, I hope, deeply gripping at the same time.

You're using today's AI and digital tools to build a story about where that same technology is heading. Does that irony ever strike you?

All the time, and I love it. I've leaned on modern apps and tech — voice-to-text especially — to work at a pace that matches how fast the ideas have been coming. They've come in so thick and fast that I haven't experienced that thing every creator dreads: writer's block. The tools let the output keep up with the momentum rather than bottlenecking me.

Alongside that, I've used AI as a sounding board — closer to what I'd have got walking into a scriptwriting course somewhere in London, five or ten years ago: somewhere to bounce ideas off, stress-test a scene, or talk a character through until it clicks. It just happens to be a chat window instead of a classroom. There's a real irony in leaning on today's emerging technology as a sounding board for a story about where that same technology is heading — it's not lost on me, and honestly, it's part of the fun. It hasn't written the story for me. The characters, the structure, the decisions — that's all mine.

Who are your inspirations — in life, or in film and TV?

A few, in very different ways. My late maternal grandmother is right up there — the calmest, most beautiful person I've ever known. If my grandmother were still here, she'd probably just laugh and say, "Go on, Cammy... put that lovely, wild imagination of yours on paper and write a wonderful story." In a way, that's exactly what's happening — just with a few more modern tools in the mix than she ever imagined.

David Attenborough is another — what he's still doing at his age is mind-blowing, and it's hard not to find that inspiring. And in film, probably George Lucas — one of the most creative, determined, imaginative storytellers I know of.

Are any of these characters based on people you actually know?

Every character is a mosaic — real traits, quirks and flaws drawn from people I've known throughout my life. I never based a single character on one specific person; that felt like a bad idea, and a good way to alienate friends. Instead I scattered those traits across the whole cast. It means the characters feel instantly recognisable — the exact quirks and behaviours we notice, worry about, or talk about in everyday life, just never attributable to one person.

Is there any hidden meaning in how you named people — or anything else — in this show?

Naming was a real creative playground. Some names, like Kessler, are just sound — chosen because of how they land, nothing more. Others carry real personal tributes. There's an animal in the series whose name, and its exact spelling, is a direct nod to a fiercely loyal friend from my school days — if he were an animal, that's exactly who he'd be. Beyond that one, I'm keeping the rest secret until people actually watch the show.