Miley Cyrus is back on the small screen! The Hannah Montana alum made her Black Mirror debut in the season 5 trailer, which was released on Wednesday, May 15.
Cyrus, 26, first appears in the preview video about halfway through the trailer. The “Nothing Breaks Like a Heart” singer, who will star on episode three, portrays a performer who releases a doll that was created to raise people’s self-esteem.
“Rachel, you look incredible,” the robotic doll says in Cyrus’ voice.
The Grammy nominee is then seen sitting at a piano wearing an oversized t-shirt and rocking a messy bun hairstyle, as a woman looks on adoringly. The scene quickly shifts to Cyrus standing on stage in front of a smiling audience. She has transformed from her casual appearance to a superstar-worthy look, complete with a shiny silver top and a purple wig.
“It’s not a doll,” a character later cries as the camera pans to the animatronic toy, made to resemble Cyrus’ celebrity persona. “That thing is poison.”
The So Undercover star first confirmed her appearance on the award-winning Netflix drama during an interview with Howard Stern in December 2018. “I’m really actually excited for everyone to watch,” she gushed at the time. “I can’t say too much, but I can say that I think I kinda hate everything that I do. Any time I leave anywhere, I think it’s horrible … I hate everything, but it was the first time that I’ve left somewhere feeling really proud of my work.”
As for her “dynamic” character? The “Malibu” songstress could not reveal too many details. “I play one character, but I play a lot of different sides of that character,” she said. “And there’s a lot of dimension to it.”
The former Disney Channel star filmed her Black Mirror scenes in South Africa, which kept her away while her and husband Liam Hemsworth’s home in Malibu was destroyed due to California’s November 2018 Woolsey wildfires.
“It was a really weird learning experience for me because I was so far from home and the show is already really dark, and it’s already kind of eerie when you’re there the whole time,” Cyrus explained. “But I learned a lot about myself, and I think I was able to kind of use that and put that into it. So maybe I love it because I love the memory that’s attached to it, because somehow art and life were imitating each other the whole time.”
Although the musician felt confident after she wrapped filming in South Africa, she was not sure it would translate on screen. “That probably means that it’s s–t,” she quipped. “You know, if I like it, it might mean that it’s horrible.”
Black Mirror season 5 premieres on Netflix on Wednesday, June 5.
