In his Black Mirror debut, Emmy-winning actor Paul Giamatti stars as a lonely man who confronts a past love by literally stepping into old photographs to recall his late girlfriend’s face.

The Season 7 episode “Eulogy” calls on Giamatti to convey a wide range of emotions — often all at once — whether that’s anger, hurt, or self-loathing. How does an award-winning actor prepare for that?

“I'm filled with defensiveness, anger and hurt,” Giamatti joked to Gold Derby on the red carpet of the show’s FYC event at the Television Academy’s Saban Media Center in North Hollywood, Calif. “It's weirdly enjoyable in some really sick way for actors to do that.”

While he said he “worried” most about the ending and the final scene “landing naturally,” The Holdovers actor also credited the episode’s writers, Ella Road and creator Charlie Brooker.

“It’s in the script when someone tells me what to do,...