Alfonso Cuarón Talks ‘Disclaimer,’ Cate Blanchett, “Truth” Fallacies, Election Narratives & More [Interview]

Five-time Academy Award-winning filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón’s AppleTV+ series, “Disclaimer,” just ended this past weekend and really flipped the entire series on its head, forcing audiences to challenge everything they believed. An engrossing psychological thriller miniseries that Cuarón wrote and directed, based on the eponymous 2015 novel by Renée Knight, “Disclaimer,” told in seven chapters, stars Academy Award winner Cate Blanchett as acclaimed journalist Catherine Ravenscroft, who has built her sterling reputation revealing the misdeeds and transgressions of others. But her world turns upside down when she receives a novel from an unknown author, and she is horrified to realize she is now the main character in a story that exposes her darkest secrets.

As Catherine races to uncover the writer’s true identity (quickly revealed to be Kevin Kline), she is forced to confront her past before it destroys her life and her relationships with her husband Robert (Sacha Baron Cohen) and their son Nicholas (Kodi Smit-McPhee).

‘Disclaimer’ Review: Cate Blanchett Shines In Alfonso Cuarón’s Compelling Revenge Thriller Mystery Series [Venice]

It’s probably fine to discuss spoilers for context now that the finale has aired, but one should really experience it blindly. Suffice it to say, “Disclaimer” leads you on one path, or at least the information laid out takes you there—essentially making you assume Blanchett is the villain of the piece—but soon reveals that the “truths” that people have clung to—particularly Kevin Kline’s character who has a personal vendetta and is trying to ruin her life— are all wrong, not factual and have been pieced together by a collection of mistruths and assumptions that surely looked like fact, but were in truth, all wrong.

Without too many spoilers, Blanchett’s Catherine character seems to be hiding everything and seems terrified with her past being revealed—which makes her appear guilty—but the truth is, it’s a trauma response by shame, guilt, and self-loathing. Nothing is as it seems. “Disclaimer” is essentially a series about our cultural rush to judgment and the way we punitively often demand justice and retribution. But in our emotional rage, we can assume much and ruin lives in the process. That said, it’s not finger-wagging or some meditation on cancel culture. It’s a series that essentially reminds us that truth is subjective, ephemeral, and a construct we often put together without the whole story.

As “Disclaimer” just ended, we spoke to Cuarón about the show and his first foray into television.

Support independent movie journalism to keep it alive. Sign up for The Playlist Newsletter. All the content you want and, oh, right, it’s free.

You read “Disclaimer” when it first came out in 2015. Presumably, it becomes even more enticing and relevant in a post- # MeToo world, a world that created cancel culture and demanded more personal accountability from people.
Well, I don’t know, I didn’t question that at the time to be honest, it was more about how I felt that it was relevant then, at the time I read it. One thing is the social dynamics that happen around the acceptance of certain issues or themes. The other thing is the issues and themes that exist and are prevalent. I think that the book has already offered an amazing richness of thematic material ever since then, and it was an amazing springboard to explore other thematics.

Right, but you don’t find yourself thinking, ‘Wow, this new age of empathy, cultural questioning, and perhaps over-correcting too much for transgressions is really making this thing extra topical? I mean, there will be facile readings about this series that it’s just a response to cancel culture, perhaps in the same way Todd Fields’ “TÁR” was seen as such in some circles.
If someone would say that about the series, I would say no because cancel culture is mentioned, but it is not the main theme of the show. Of course, look at when the book was published; I don’t think even that term existed back then. Obviously, as we were adapting the piece that we shot, we shot some scenes maybe a couple of years ago or a year ago. We incorporated contemporary references; you have to adapt to the world in which you live. So yes, it is borrowing elements of our own culture, but it’s not about that.

As a culture, I think we used to think the truth was the truth, but as the series says, stories, narratives, and experiences are subjective and can be perceived in many different ways.
Yes, but it’s always been the case. I mean, truth, ultimately, it’s a construct. There’s one thing that is objective facts, and the other thing is truth. And truth is something that we construct through narratives. And sometimes narratives take us to the truth, and sometimes narratives construct their own truths.

I think the issue we’re living with now is that narratives have become a substitute for truth. We have become addicted to narratives—sometimes instant narratives and short narratives—and we put reflection and contemplation to the side. And a narrative without reflection is just information. It can be pretty much meaningless because it doesn’t convey anything but the goal of the narrative itself, which nowadays tends to be emotional triggers.

Right, that triggers the outrage and the rush to judgment.
We’ve just seen it in the recent election—people come to conclusions through narratives. And it’s not because people are stupid or they’re bad. What “Disclaimer” has shown me—because I think that the immense majority of people have made the wrong conclusions at the end of “Disclaimer”— they’ve been confronted with their own judgment, their own narrative that they created, and they have been confronted with being absolutely wrong, and including myself when I read the book. And it’s not because we’re stupid or because we are evil or bad; it is because we were swept in a narrative. And it’s not unlike what happened in the election.

Definitely, there are lots of parallels to that observation. Tell me about working with Cate Blanchett and Kevin Kline and why you chose them. Kevin, in particular, feels like he’s been semi-retired.
When I was writing the screenplay, I thought of Cate. I could only see Cate while I was writing. Luckily, Cate got involved in the project very early on. I finished the script and sent it to her. She agreed to do it, and then she became my creative partner. She was part of it, involved in every creative decision we made, all the way through the end of the show, including casting.

She was the one who called me once we were discussing who could play Steven. She called and said, “I’m just walking out of a dinner, and we were laughing and talking about “A Fish Called Wanda.” And I instantly said, “Wait, do you mean Kevin for the part?” She said, “Yes, Kevin,” and that was how the idea of Kevin came through. So I contacted Kevin, and he was kind of a bit surprised, intrigued, and daunted, but he accepted it. Remember something: Kevin is an American actor, and he was playing a very specific British man, right?

Right. You’ve had a whole acclaimed cinema career, and now you’ve switched to TV. Do you think you’ll do it again? Or will you go back to film next?
Well, because the way I approached “Disclaimer”—look, I don’t know how to do television. So when I proposed this to Apple, I said, “Hey guys, I don’t know how to do television. So this is a TV series, but the only way I can approach it, the only way I know how to shoot it, is to make a film.” And Apple was very generous. They said, “Yes, do it that way.”

My miscalculation was that in a conventional TV show, you shoot for less time, and in a film, you shoot for longer. The series is like three and a half films put together, so it took forever to make. I could do it only because I had immense support from Apple. They were amazing, supporting me and enduring the whole experience, but it was also very clear that this would be a TV series.

It’s funny you say that because I was going to ask: This was announced ages ago, shot in 2022, and is just coming out now. I imagine what you just explained and the editing of shooting that much extra material is why it took so long.
Yes, that is exactly why. First of all, the prep was way longer. And then we shot for more than a year. We had to edit all that material, and then we had to finish the color correction and the sound mix, which took almost seven hours.

It was a lengthy process, but I also followed the methodology that I know, which is film. So it’s more detailed and lengthy, and it takes a while, but I’m proud of the result. It’s something you can watch at home and have a very similar experience—particularly if you have a decent sound system or wear headphones—to the big screen. All the creative collaborators were very careful to make sure that the experience on your devices would have a similar impact.

So, I’m hearing you, and it sounds like this was a bit daunting. Maybe it’s not something you would jump into next.
No, not immediately; I think now I have to go to a smaller project. But eventually, why not? And particularly if I have this incredible support that I had from Apple, why not? There’s something so fascinating about developing character and story even further and deeper.

I’m wondering what you hope is the main takeaway from the series. For me, it’s all about confronting our biases, misperceptions, and misconceptions.
Yes. I will say that the whole thing was precisely built to confront audiences and their judgments because the film is constructed upon several narratives that are running together parallel. Still, the most important one is the narrative that the audience is creating, but through their own judgments of the same story. The goal was to confront those judgments and those narratives that the audience is making to the reality that we present at the end of the show.

Cate was very adamant about that, too— we have to be very careful never to cheat that. So, if you watch the show again, you’re watching a completely different show and without the prism of your judgment. It’s completely different; it’s a show that is already telling you everything, and it becomes a show about a woman who’s trying to tell her story but is afraid, and not many are listening.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity. All episodes of Alfonso Cuarón’s “Disclaimer” are streaming now on AppleTV+.