Thomas Jolly, who masterminded the unique Olympic opening ceremony in Paris, has been reflecting on how the bad weather on that day last July felt apt.

Diving deep into the ceremony six months on, Jolly told a Series Mania audience that the rain “acted as a throughline in a way” to what the team, which included Call My Agent! creator Fanny Herrero, were trying to do with the ceremony.

“The rain that fell on Lady Gaga also falls on the audience watching from the riverbanks,” he said. “It put us all on an equal footing and that was the key message we wanted to share through the live event – sharing.”

The much-discussed bad weather struck a splashy ceremony that for the first time did not take place in an arena but was conducted with hundreds of boats along the River Seine. Lady Gaga was one of a number of high-profile performers including Celine Dion and Aya Nakamura, and there were many other performances throughout, some of which courted controversy.

“We had control of everything but we are not god-like in the end and couldn’t do anything about the weather,” added Jolly. “But we didn’t give up, we had Olympic spirit and Parisian spirit, so we didn’t drown in the rain and we gathered our strength.”

“A geographic arena”

Speaking alongside Jolly this morning, Herrero said she treated the ceremony as a “geographic arena.”

“There was the idea of movement and this natural set that was given to us,” she added. “This is what we wanted to tell – a country that never stops and an identity not set forever. It has elements from here and there, from the underground, from the bar. It was as if France was a character. The beauty, the pride, the pain and sorrow, that was the way I looked at it.”

Jolly detailed how the River Seine “gave us a rhythm” with the once-in-a-lifetime ceremony.

“The Seine gave us for the first time the opportunity to change everything,” he added. “We could think about another structure of the ceremony.”

The city of Paris, he went on to say, acted as “characters,” showcasing Paris in all its diversity.

The team therefore “tried to intersect” a wealth of different “artistic tastes” including opera, metal, urban music and traditional. “We wanted to make sure others could see these eclectic tastes,” he added. “It brought about unity. Everyone was represented on screen. My job was to represent people in terms of narrative, in terms of character.”

Jolly was not asked, however, about the police complaint he filed on July 31 that said he was the target of death threats, insults and defamation. He came under particular attack for a controversial scene entitled “festivity” featuring drag queens sitting around a table. Earlier this month, seven people stood trial on charges of making death threats and cyberbullying against Jolly.

Jolly and Herrero were speaking at Series Mania in Lille, which ends Thursday. Other high-profile speakers include Charlie Brooker, James Norton and Sally Wainwright.