‘Man in the High Castle’ director was scared of Nazis at Comic-Con

Daniel Percival (second from left)
Amazon

• “The Man in the High Castle” director and executive producer
  Daniel Percival spoke to Business Insider ahead of the show’s
  third season, which premieres October 5 on Amazon Prime Video.
• Percival talked about being scared of running into cosplaying
  Nazis at Comic-Con, the increasing relevance of the show for
  audiences with the rise of far-right populism, and whether the
  team has plotted out an end for the show.

 

When “The Man in the High Castle” director and executive producer
Daniel Percival first went to Comic-Con to help promote the
Amazon TV series, he was terrified that people would show up
dressed in character.

For most shows, that would be a lovely way for fans to support
their favorite characters, but this show was different, since it
dramatizes an alternate universe where the Axis Powers won World
War II and are currently occupying what was formerly the United
States of America.

“I was terrified [people would] roll up in Nazi or Japanese
Imperial uniform,” Percival told Business Insider in a interview
in advance of the show’s third season, which premieres Friday,
October 5. Percival’s fear didn’t come to pass, though he did see
one person dressed in a SS uniform at that Comic-Con, albeit a
pink one, with a Hello Kitty logo where the SS logo should have
been.

“A Hello Kitty Nazi,” Percival said.

But Percival’s fear speaks to something the “Man in the High
Castle” team is aware of at all times: walking the tightrope of
portraying the show’s fascist characters as human beings, while
trying to prevent them from being a rallying cry for the far
right in our own world.

Percival said the goal was to demonstrate how evil comes from
one’s choices and circumstances.

“Very few shows deal with the subject matter of moral choice in
quite this way,” Percival said. “Given the circumstances of your
life what choices would you make.” It’s tricky and one reason why
Percival acknowledged that it can be an alienating show for some
audiences.

“Not everyone wants to watch Nazis and [Japanese] Imperial forces
winning the war,” he said. But Percival said he has always
thought it served an important function.

“High Castle sounds as a warning of how easy it is to slide,”
Percival explained. He said from the moment he first signed onto
the series, he knew that fascism was lurking in our contemporary
world. “I was never in any doubt,” he said, perhaps partially
because he is British and not American. But other people’s
awareness of it has increased as far-right movements have picked
up steam in various parts of the world, he said.

“For our audiences it’s become an increasingly fascinating
parallel for them,” Percival said. He said since Amazon started
making the show, the world has become more enamored with
strong-man politics and populism — voting “with our guts instead
of heads.”

“It happened in the 1930s and it’s happening again now, [so] we
need to be wary,” he said.

The destruction of history

One of the most striking parts of season three of “The Man in the
High Castle” — which certainly resonates with the war over truth
going on in US media and politics — is the idea of controlling
information and history.

“Hitler and Stalin, they understood that if you control the lie,
you control the truth,” Percival said. In season three, the Nazis
begin to try and eradicate history by destroying icons that
people can rally behind, until there is only one truth: theirs.

“Hitler himself had this ambition,” Percival said.

Liane Hentscher/Amazon Prime
Video

There’s an end in sight

The desire of the Nazis in the show to conquer history also ties
up with the multiverse. In this season, the concept of a
multiverse, which Percival said was an essential part of Philip
K. Dick’s original vision, takes center stage.

Percival said in the show, the concept serves as a type of karmic
cycle, that the characters are “destined to replicate the
patterns until [they] reach full understanding.”

But it was also a tricky element to introduce heavily into the
show, he said.

“How do we not overwhelm the audience?” he said. “How do we bring
this back to human narratives?”

But one thing that’s not going to happen is “The Man in the High
Castle” throwing conceptual curveballs at the audience until it
gets canceled. Percival said the team now has an end in mind,
which was not the case two seasons ago.

“Now, yes, there is a plotted-out end,” he said.

“The Man in the High Castle” season three premieres October 5
on Amazon Prime Video.