Michael Nardelli photographed by Ryan West

DARK/WEB, an anthology series that is being released July 19 on Amazon Prime, is comprised of eight stories dealing with the different dangers of the tech age, connected by a serialized narrative uncovering the mystery being a woman named Molly’s disappearance.

Co-creator Michael Nardelli, who also stars in the series, spent some time chatting with me about the show – how it came together, what we should expect, and how it may have manifested some terrifying real world dark web situations by merely existing!

I was watching the trailer and things for the show. It looks terrifying in only the way that technology terrifies people these days.
Good, that’s how we want you to feel. We want you to be scared, we want you to worry about these things.

For people who aren’t sure what DARK/WEB is, what is this and what can we expect or how are you describing it?
It’s a little unconventional in that it’s an anthology series that’s connected by one storyline which is what we liked. We describe it as an anthology, sci-fi, or thriller, cautionary tale. Definitely has some elements of the Twilight Zone and Black Mirror a little bit, and Mr Robot. Really deals with this growing technological crisis that we seem to be heading towards or are already in. But it’s also pretty character driven. Me and Mario and Tim, my brother, the co-creators definitely have a lot of experiences with the internet and social media. We really wanted to have the point of view of being this generation that’s caught in between the analog world that we grew up in and then this digital landscape that we’re in now. I think more than some of those other shows I talked about, it’s pretty emotional and character driven and hopefully thoughtful on the world that we’re living in and really examining how social media and cyber terror and the dark web itself, how it’s affecting us on a day to day basis and changing the way we think and changing the things that we’re afraid of and changing the way we meet people and fall in love.

Exactly.
The good and the bad, because there’s some good things, it’s not all scary. 

But you talk about how technology has changed. I grew up in that world where I didn’t have a cell phone until I was 18 and now I have a cell phone that hears my thoughts and knows what I want to buy on Instagram and then I buy it all. I’m just like, what is happening?
I know and it slowly crept in and then we all just embraced it without asking what the consequences are. I think we’re starting to see the consequences as we were writing the show and producing it and filming it, a lot of the topics that we wrote about were happening. Companies were getting hacked and identities were getting stolen. Foreign actors were invading our election and everything else. A lot of the stuff was happening in real time as we wrote it and is still happening, so we definitely like to focus on topical things and the dark web seems pretty darn topical. I know when we were just developing it, my parents were like, what’s the dark web? Then by the time we were filming it they were like, oh my God there’s a commercial on TV right now about how to protect yourself from the dark web. We were like, yep, we know.

Is there anything that, as getting ready for the show and preparing, producing, you think oh this could never happen and you write this, then it’s something that is happening? Is there something that’s so out there, you thought would never happen that we are experiencing now in this dark web world?
So many things. There were literally so many things. We have a lot of cutaways to news updates in the show and literally companies getting hacked or identities getting stolen and things like that, so much of that was happening while we were filming it that it was like, oh my God did we manifest this? Whoopsies.

It being an anthology series, how will it work episode to episode? Is it different stories every episode or are there different characters each time? How does everything weave together?
Yeah, it’s unique and it’s a little unconventional. I don’t know if anyone’s ever done it this way before. I’ve seen some movies that do it a little bit but I don’t know if anyone’s ever done it in a series format. That’s actually why we really wanted to do it because me and Mario and Tim, who worked on the show, we all love anthology shows. We also love serialized narratives and we like when we get hooked into these characters on anthology shows, when they end, we’re like, I want more. I got invested in that, now it’s done. I want more. If somebody watches one episode, there’s food for them get it. There’s anthology, we call them anthology segments or A story, B story to each episode. But if you keep watching you see that there is recurring themes or easter eggs or visual motifs or elements that are pieces of the puzzle that are slowly coming together, which is connected by one storyline or serialized A story, we call it, which is about the disappearance of this girl who sent out these stories and this cautionary tale that she’s telling about the internet, the dark web and the world wide web, and technology. You have to watch an episode or two and then I think you get it. You’re getting these separate stories within our main story but the more you watch, it’s all connected. The same way that we’re all connected in this modern … it’s got a metaphor for that but our tagline is, we’re all part of it. It’s kind of true whether you’re on the dark web or not on the dark web, you’re on the dark web. You’re there, your information is there, we’re all connected. We’re always on and we all are part of the web.

Right. Did you come onboard as an actor first or working with the guys, did you then decide to play? How did your involvement in the show come together?
I am a working actor in LA, have been for decades at this point, getting old. It’s weird to think about that. But no, it was I had the initial idea of this anthology idea that would be connected by a certain group of characters that would resolve the story in a serialized format. Mario and Tim and I had worked on this, Mario Miscione and Tim Nardelli, my brother, we worked on a movie called Circle a couple of years ago that became a Netflix film. We did it very do it yourself, scrappy, indie, post film school style. Had a really good experience on that and got distribution by Netflix after we debuted it at the Seattle Film Festival. We had a really good working relationship and Circle was really fun and we wanted to test ourselves and use that indie infrastructure that we created with Circle, which was really like a troop of filmmakers and actors because we had 50 actors in one room and all these tight knit artists working together. We wanted to do a series, so I had the initial idea of doing an anthology that would have connected tissue and then from there we were like, okay what is the connective tissue? We all honed in on the dark web because it was just starting to come out in the press at that point and were fascinated by what was going on there. Terrified about what was going on there and we just realized that it was like this melting pot for a lot of really crazy, bizarre, interesting, dark, twisted, sometimes lighthearted stories and it would continue to be a cesspool of stories because it’s unfortunately not going anywhere. People are taking steps to protect yourself and arrest bad actors on there but it’s kind of hard to police, so we knew it would have stories. That was my involvement was creating and co-creating the show with my Circle partners in crime. We developed it and started writing it. I’m an actor, so if there’s ever chance for me to act in stuff I’m creating, I’d love to do it and there was this character, James, the more we wrote, I was like oh, I feel like I’m writing for him at this point. Yeah, I’d like to play James, I just related to him and what he was about and wanted to play him, and that was it. I acted in Circle as well, so it wasn’t a surprise to the guys. I was like, yes, I want to be in this too.

What’s it like working with your brother? Did you guys come up together? What is that like, not just working with a writer or director but someone that you’re actually related to, too?
It’s really good and it’s really challenging in some ways. We grew up in the mid-West, in a small rust belt town. We just grew up as big movie nerds and gaming nerds and film nerds and TV. He’s a huge comic book fan and is a comic book artist. He’s more in the visual graphic design side and I obviously came into it through more performance, through theater and making shorts when I was growing up and everything. Me and Tim, we have different interests and similar interests. We work together on certain things and then we divide … I can’t draw for the life of me, I can’t draw a stick figure. I can’t, I did this drawing at Disney World one time and they wouldn’t even put it up on the screen. It was like one of those learn to draw things and I think it was so bad they wouldn’t even show it. He makes fun of me for that, but we compliment each other. It’s great to work with family because you know you can trust them. We have similar interests and then we can run off and I’ll be like Tim, we need graphic art, can you work on this? He’s like, yeah can you go work on casting and licensing the music and all that stuff and I’ll be like, yep, I got it. It’s a really cool divide and conquer thing. Then there’s family so sometimes you bicker, and fight because they’re super close to you.

Michael Nardelli photographed by Ryan West

Yeah, family is always your biggest enemy sometimes. You’re like, those are the people I can take it out on, so they face the brunt of everything.
Yeah. You just have more of a shorthand for better or worse, shorthand that’s convenient sometimes and then shorthand that’s bossy sometimes.

Right, exactly.
I’m sure he thinks I’m bossy, sometimes he’s bossy with me. But it’s rewarding when you can work with family and I know our parents love it. It is really cool when we’ve finished up and we’re like, yeah, good job brother. We celebrate everything, so it’s cool, it’s good. I like it.

It’s exciting too that the show is coming to Comic Con. I’m getting all these announcements it’s starting to happen. San Diego Comic Con’s pretty huge so is that exciting that the show’s going to get to be there and screen for this audience that should really eat it up! These are the people that will love this show.
I hope so, yeah I hope they love it. It’s super, super … when we got the confirmation that we were going to do a panel, got invited to do a panel at Comic Con, we were like yeah, we were freaking out. Because we are like this tiny blip in the ocean of Comic Con but I think that’s cool. I think what we’ve been talking about lately is just we did do this ourselves and it was very crafted, made to order, bespoke, is that the right word? Is that how you say it, bespoke? Kind of show. I think even through our circle, we’ve always been about new voices and being inclusive and having a wide range of stories and characters and people that look all kinds of different ways and sound different ways and are different ages and everything and really focused on authentic, original, well as original as original can be. Every story’s been told but especially this summer it seems like everything’s sequels and remakes and all that stuff. I love all that stuff too, I’m always in line for it but I think it’s cool that Comic Con invited us because there’s big guns there and we’re about new voices and new artists and bringing new people to the table, so I think it’s really cool that they invited us to be there and hopefully in the midst of all the Marvel stuff and the DC stuff, I hope that people come give us a chance too because we’re trying to tell some cool, new stories. You always need something new, something new, something borrowed, something, whatever it is.

But the show does boast some names that people at Comic Con are going to flock to. You’ve got Clare (Grant) and Julie (Benz) and Nicholas (Brendan), how big a part do they play? It’s still those are names that you have the people that they’re going to discover because they’re brand new and you want that, but you have those names that Comic Con eats up.
Yeah, and Gabe Luna, who’s the new Terminator is in it. Zelda Williams wrote and directed and stars in an episode/segment that she did. Some people, like Sibongile, she plays Amy in the show and in between us and the filming and going through post production, she’s gone to be on three other series. Siren and Lost in Space and a new show. She did some of those after we filmed Dark/Web and I was like, so jealous you’ve got these shows that are already done and we’re still working on effects shots. Yeah, there’s a good mix of fan friendly names that we were lucky to get, because they liked the material. In the case of Julie, we worked with her on Circle and I pretty much stalked her until she did something. She’s like I’m busy, I can’t do anything. Then there was finally this one last straw, I was like, please and she was like, okay. That was good and then we met Claire was new to work with and she was awesome. Everyone was super cool to work with and we have a good melting point. That’s what we’re proud of, our cast in this and in Circle was all different ages and races and genders and sexualities and everything. It’s a good representative of the world we live in now. We’re excited about that.

It sounds like you’re keeping busy, acting in a play while doing this and doing all the press. What else are you working on that you can talk about right now?
Yeah, Dark/Web’s took up my life the last couple of years. I’m still working on that, we’re delivering all the elements to Amazon and to Comic Con and everything. Any time you create something as a producer it is like a house where for the rest of your life you have to maintain it to a certain degree. Checking in on the accounting and residuals, licensing, when the licenses expire you have to get it a new home somewhere else and find it a new owner, as it were. That’s always going on and then I’m in this play right now in LA called The Narcissist Next Door, which is part of the Hollywood Fringe Festival that they do every summer. It too is a lot of new content and new voices and new artists, which is exciting and I haven’t done live theater in a while and I haven’t done comedy in a while, so it’s been a good experiment, a good challenge. We have, let’s see, three more shows and then we’re done for now and then after that, after Comic Con I’m already going back to the audition circuits so we’ll see what jobs come from that. Then I’m writing new material to either produce or direct or do something with.

Working for Amazon versus, say, your basic network or cable kind of TV, has there been a difference with the streaming platform and how it’s approached or how you approach things, knowing that it’s going to be right there for consumption right away? How does that change your approach, if at all?
We didn’t do it, the genesis of Dark/Web didn’t come from Amazon. I think what I’ve been talking about with some young filmmakers and everything is we did Circle on our own, raised the money on our own, put it together and made it and then we got acquired after it got some attention at a film festival. Dark/Web was the same thing, we put it together on our own with the idea that it would probably be best on streaming just because it does have, well we hope, a binge-ability, is that a word? Binge-ability to it. Because it’s an unconventional way to structure a story, we have an A story and a B story and not all of our episodes are the same length. It’s a unique thing that we handcrafted and then we’re lucky enough in this modern day and age that you can do stuff on your own and you work really hard and you call in favors and you try to make it look as TV or film friendly as you can on the indie budget that we had.

Then you’re lucky enough that you can, like with Circle, get it to Netflix or with Dark/Web, bring it to Amazon and they like it and then we’re able to use their platform that they worked hard to establish and get our series out there. Like you said, tell it the way that we wanted to tell it and put the pieces together the way that we wanted to. Again, focus on newer artists or voices that haven’t had a chance before because I think when you do stuff within the more complex established studio system, there’s a lot of rules you have to play by. Those rules are good, like I love big studio movies and everything but it’s a hard barrier to break through, so I think it’s really cool that young, indie filmmakers now can do stuff and actually get it out on Amazon to millions and millions of people, that’s crazy. Filmmakers in the past didn’t have that outlet so it’s super exciting you can do stuff on your own terms. It takes a lot more work and it’s stressful.

I can imagine.
Yeah, it’s definitely, like on Dark/Web we had myself and a lot of other people doing the jobs of 15 different people, if this were a bigger infrastructure of studio made series or film, but it’s rewarding and it’s cool and you can actually do it now and people can see it, which is really amazing actually. We’re really lucky.

Yeah, I’m excited for people to see it because like I said, even just watching trailers alone or sneak peeks of it, it’s just so ominous and this fear that it’s really happening. This isn’t sci-fi, this isn’t the future, this is now.
Oh yeah, it’s definitely a cautionary tale and it is happening in real time as you watch it. It was happening in real time as we were filming it, it was a little scary. It’s really weird, like we have a Dark/Web fan page on Facebook and we get so many people that join it because they think it’s actually access to the real dark web. We’ll get messages like, how do I hack Facebook with this? We’re like, oh my God, no. That’s not us. It’s scary, the whole world has opened up through the internet, and through the dark web specifically. Watch it, learn some lessons, protect yourself, get LifeLock or one of these things.

DARK/WEB will be released on July 19 on Amazon Prime Video. 
The DARK/WEB Comic Con panel is being held Friday, July 19, at 1:30PM (Pacific) at the Horton Grand Theatre!