Conception and development (left) and
Rami Malek (right) speaking as part of the
Mr. Robot panel during the 2015
PaleyFest. Slater has also served as a producer since the first season, while Malek began producing in season 3. Sam Esmail, the show's creator and showrunner, is the credited writer on the vast majority of the episodes. In an interview, Esmail shared that he is fascinated by
hacker culture and wanted to make a film about it for around 15 years. In the production, Esmail consulted experts to give a realistic picture of hacking activities. Another inspiration for Esmail, who is of Egyptian descent, was the
2011 Arab Spring, mainly the
Egyptian Revolution, where young people who were angry at society used
social media to bring about a change. He has said that Elliot is a "thinly-veiled version" of himself. Esmail had originally intended
Mr. Robot to be a
feature film, with the end of the first act being someone finding out that he had a mental disorder while enacting a greater scheme. However, midway through writing the first act, he found that the script had expanded considerably, and that it had become better-suited for a television show. He removed 20 of around 89 pages of the script then written, and used it as the pilot for the series, and what was to have been the end of the first act became the finale of the first season. After an exhaustive search to cast the lead role, it was announced in September 2014 that
Rami Malek had been cast as Elliot; the remainder of the roles in the pilot were cast later in September and October. USA picked it up to series with a 10-episode order in December 2014. Production began in New York on April 13, 2015. The pilot premiered on multiple online and video on demand services on May 27, 2015, and the series was renewed for a second season before the first season premiered on USA on June 24, 2015. In December 2015, it was announced that Esmail would direct all episodes in the second season. In June 2016, it was announced that the second season's episode order was increased from 10 to 12 episodes. The 12-episode second season premiered on July 13, 2016. The third season debuted in October 2017 and consisted of 10 episodes. All episodes were directed by Esmail, just as in the second season. On December 13, 2017, USA renewed
Mr. Robot for a fourth season. In August 2018, it was confirmed that the fourth season would be the final season. Originally, the show planned to dress Elliot in a worn sweatshirt and colorful backpack; however, Malek suggested a black backpack and wore his own B:Scott black hoodie to set. The outfit became the signature look for the character, and the costume designer ordered 20 more of them, despite the item having been discontinued years earlier.
Cinematography The show's
cinematographer Tod Campbell is known for helping craft "a distinct moody and disruptive" feel to the scenes' atmosphere through stylistic lighting and camera choices. The unorthodox approach taken involves characters "placed at the very bottom of the frame" which in turn "leaves massive amounts of headroom that suggests a great weight hanging over their heads, and echoes their isolation." The intended effect for audiences is to feel a sense of "mounting paranoia and dissociation" of the protagonist.
Visual effects and soundtrack FuseFX was hired to provide the visual effects for episode "
eps3.4_runtime-error.r00" of season 3, in which they took 40 shots and stitched them together to appear as one seamless shot for the entire episode. Composer
Mac Quayle created the soundtrack.
Technical accuracy Mr. Robot has been widely praised for its technical accuracy by numerous
cybersecurity firms and services such as
Avast,
Panda Security,
Avira,
Kaspersky,
Proton Mail, and bloggers who analyzed and dissected the technical aspects of the show after episodes portraying hacking scenes aired. Aside from the pilot episode, Esmail hired Kor Adana (former network security analyst and forensics manager for
Toyota Motor Sales), Michael Bazzell (security consultant and former
FBI Cyber Crimes Task Force agent and investigator) and James Plouffe (lead solutions architect at
MobileIron) as his advisors to oversee the technical accuracy of the show. By the second season, Adana assembled a team of hackers and cybersecurity experts including
Jeff Moss (founder and director of
Black Hat and
DEF CON computer security conferences),
Marc Rogers (principal security researcher for
Cloudflare and head of security for DEF CON), Ryan Kazanciyan (who was then chief security architect for
Tanium and is now the CISO at
Wiz) and Andre McGregor (former
FBI Cyber Special agent who was then director of security for
Tanium and now CEO of ForceMetrics) to assist him with the authenticity of the hacks and the technology being used. Hacking scenes were performed by members of the technical team in real life, recorded and rebuilt using
Flash animation. Animation process is carried out by animator Adam Brustein under the direct supervision of Adana himself.
Kali Linux and its tools were used in multiple episodes. The show has also attempted to accurately represent Elliot's mental health issues. In an interview with
Terry Gross for the radio show
Fresh Air, Malek recounted contacting a psychologist to learn about
schizophrenia,
dissociative identity disorder, and
social anxiety. When in meetings with Esmail, Malek's knowledge on the topics led Esmail to bring the psychologist on as a consultant for the show. Subsequently, the show has been widely praised by critics, viewers and psychiatrists as being one of the most accurate representations of mental health issues ever portrayed on TV or film, especially for its depictions of dissociative identity disorder, social anxiety, panic disorders and
chronic depression. Malek and Chaikin's performances have been further singled out for their "raw and authentic depictions of mental illness [which] makes it more relatable to those who haven't experienced it firsthand" while also representing a "kindred spirit" to viewers who do have mental health issues.
Influences ,
Rami Malek, and others accepting the 2016
Peabody Award for
Mr. Robot Sam Esmail has acknowledged several major influences on the show, such as
American Psycho,
Taxi Driver,
A Clockwork Orange, and
The Matrix. In particular, Esmail credited
Fight Club as the inspiration for a main character who has
dissociative identity disorder creating a new manifestation of his deceased father in the form of a hacker, as well as for the
anti-consumerist,
anti-establishment, and
anti-capitalist spirit of its characters. Commentators have also noted the parallel in its plot on the erasing of consumer debt records to the film. Even so, Lauren Lawson for
GQ remarked, "
Mr. Robot elevates the
Fight Club formula: the show's mindfuckery lubes us up to think about society (Elliot's and ours) in a discerning way, but it's not the main event. You can see
Fight Club once and pretty much get the picture, but it will take years of scholarly binge-watching to answer the questions
Mr. Robot raises." In an interview, Esmail explains how playing the song that
David Fincher used to underscore the climax of
Fight Club ("
Where Is My Mind?") when Elliot initiates the hack in episode nine is intended as a message to the audience that he is aware of the inspiration they took from the film. The narration by the protagonist was influenced by
Taxi Driver, and other influences mentioned included
Risky Business for its music score,
Blade Runner for the character development, and the television series
Breaking Bad for the
story arc. As the production crew was unable to shut down
Times Square for filming, the scenes at Times Square in the first-season finale were shot late at night just before the
July 4 holiday weekend to catch the area at its emptiest while other shots were done on sets. Production on the second season began on March 7, 2016, resuming filming in New York City.
Hacking Robot debuted after the second-season premiere and aired again following the tenth episode. In addition, a weekly web-only aftershow titled
Mr. Robot Digital After Show premiered on
The Verge and
USA Network's websites after the third episode, and continued through the third season. ==Reception==