It’s been quite some time since we’ve seen a Netflix original series with a premise as unique and off-the-wall as Eric.
Benedict Cumberbatch stars in the brand new limited series about a puppeteer in the 90s whose life is turned upside down when his son, Edgar, goes missing.
Desperate for answers, he believes that turning his son’s drawings of a monster called Eric into a life-sized puppet might help bring him home.
But the show goes far beyond its initial premise, with the Sherlock actor describing it as “a story about people finding their home”.
Here are 11 behind-the-scenes facts you may not know about how the show came together…
Benedict Cumberbatch is behind Eric’s gruff voice
Okay, so maybe you’ve worked that one out by now. But we know from his role as the titular dragon in The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug that the actor is super talented when it comes to voice work.
“That was one of the things I was most excited about when Benedict came on board, because he’s such a talented voice actor,” director Lucy Forbes told Netflix.
“We always knew that he should be gruff and really New York. And Benedict found it pretty quickly.”
However, his original attempt to bring Eric to life didn’t go down too well…
It turns out Benedict didn’t get Eric’s voice exactly right on the initial try, revealing to Digital Spy that bosses actually gave his first go the thumbs down.
“I wanted to go a little bit augmented and create something more startling than the lower register that I can produce, because it limits your range of pitch,” explained.
“It limits how you can give characterisation and colour to the expression, if you have a voice of my pitch and then push it lower.”
The Oscar nominee added: “I’m one of the worst critics of my own work. I don’t read critics, so who knows. But to me, I agree that it had to come from something that was utterly linked with Vincent. And therefore, it was a playful thing. We wanted him to be working class.”
The Eric puppet almost looked very different
Unsurprisingly, the design of the seven-foot Eric went through many iterations until they got it just right. The finished product is a huge, furry costume worn by puppet operator Olly Taylor (whose recent credits include the Teletubbies reboot and the Star Wars spin-off Solo).
However, at first they even considered an animatronic version with silicone skin. At various other points, apparently he had loads of teeth, eyes and horns.
It was creator Abi Morgan who helped keep the vision on track, “reminding everyone that he was still a puppet” and “not a real creature”, according to puppet supervisor Becky Johnson.
And did you take a good look at those eyes?
The team spent 10 weeks working on three suits – two versions of the “Imaginary” Eric and the version Vincent builds for the Good Day Sunshine TV show.
Main Eric’s eyes were actually modelled after Benedict’s own irises. Apparently, before he’d even been cast, writer Becky Johnson and puppet supervisor Paul Vincett were sent photos of a mystery person and told (per Netflix): “We’d like Eric’s eyes to be the actor’s eyes, and it might be these”.
After just one look, Becky knew: “That is Benedict Cumberbatch!”
Benedict branded one particular scene the most “ludicrous” thing he’s ever done
In the final episode, we see Vincent stumbling around New York in the Eric costume while carrying the head at his side – which made for a pretty memorable career moment for Benedict.
“It was one of the most ludicrous things I’ve ever done – and I’ve done a few,” he told the BBC. “It was fun though – and painfully funny.”
Also, this guy’s reaction in the below picture was all of us when we first saw these images circulating.
Meanwhile, another detail left Benedict Cumberbatch in tears
With some of the heavy subject matters the show tackles, it’s no surprise that Benedict’s role took “weeks to shake off”, as he told Sky News.
Not only that, but the realisation of the sheer commitment of puppet operator Olly Taylor left him emotional.
“People say, ‘What moved you most about this drama?’ Actually it was putting on Olly’s visor and seeing what he saw, and how he’d been doing it for about five months at that point,” he told the BBC.
“It just made me be so sad for my collaborator, who’d been so brilliant, but had suffered so much.”
The team was undecided on that memorable final shot
In the final shot of the series, we see that Eric is still very much present in Vincent’s life, which was a decision that writer Abi Morgan says the team went “back and forth” on.
“I think it’s that the monster doesn’t go away, we just learn to live with him,” she told GQ. “And I guess it’s about our demons, and sometimes in knowing our demons, we can hold them and let them live with us.
“Eric is the best and the worst of Vincent, and most monsters, they’re conflicted — they know they should be one thing.”
A certain musical star is behind that Good Day Sunshine theme tune
If you haven’t been able to get the earworm tune that is the Good Day Sunshine theme tune out of your head, that’s because it was actually written by Matilda The Musical composer Tim Minchin.
“The incredibly talented and genuinely delightful Abi Morgan has made a new TV mini series Eric,” Tim wrote on X. “They asked me to write a little song for it so I did!”
It’s also clear that the Eric team cut no corners when it came to the musical accompaniment, as it was scored by Keefus Ciancia, who’s previously worked on The Fall, True Detective and Killing Eve.
The show was also shot in a major European city
While Eric was set in New York, that wasn’t the only place it was filmed. Many of the interior shots were in fact shot in Budapest, Hungary, simply because this was more cost effective.
“There was never going to be an option to shoot the whole thing in New York because it’s so expensive,” director Lucy told the Radio Times.
“So it was about choosing the right place to go, and Budapest has lots of very good studio space that is cost effective and has an amazing crew.”
It turned out the interior Budapest architecture also “felt very reminiscent of the time period” of the 1980s and 90s.
They were able to recycle the set of a huge action superhero film
While shooting in Budapest, the team were able to reuse a set for Hellboy II, which was also set in New York.
“It has a New York backlot which is basically two streets which were built for Guillermo del Toro’s Hellboy II. It was pretty tired and falling apart, so we did a lot of work to it and we built a lot,” Lucy shared with the Radio Times.
“We built loads of interior sets in Budapest. Vincent and Cassie’s apartment, Good Day Sunshine etc.”
Those subway tunnels were actually real
When it came to depicting the tunnels that Yuusuf and the other homeless people were living in under New York, Both Abi Morgan and Lucy Forbes were inspired by a 2000 documentary called Dark Day, about the “mole people” living underneath the city.
“The access is amazing, and it’s incredibly heartbreaking as it follows a group of people living and surviving under the streets,” Lucy told the Radio Times.
However, that specific part of the set was also built in Budapest, since there’s around 20 miles of tunnels underneath the city which were used to store beer. “So we built a big section of the tunnel set under there,” she added.
Eric is available to watch on Netflix now.