Gemma Chan Explains the Art of Being a Robot on ‘Humans’
Gemma Chan
ANDREW TESTA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
By KATHRYN SHATTUCK
JUNE 26, 2015
She bumped into sets and crew members. She even tumbled down the stairs. Playing a robot in the new AMC drama “Humans” was awkward at first for the British actress Gemma Chan. “I honestly thought my head would explode,” she said with a laugh by phone from London.
Her character, Anita, is an exquisite specimen of artificial intelligence — or “synth” — one of the must-own gadgets populating a present-day London in a parallel universe. Anita is purchased by an exasperated husband (Tom Goodman-Hill) after his wife’s work schedule proves more than he and their three messy offspring can handle. But with her silky ebony hair, lithe limbs and ability to charm man and child alike, Anita isn’t exactly the kind of help a frazzled middle-age woman (Katherine Parkinson) wants to encounter at the breakfast table before she’s had her morning shower.
What’s even more disconcerting, Anita seems to make un-synth-like errors — like bumping into the wife with a hot pan and hiding a giant spider in her hands. And sometimes there’s a hint of emotion flickering behind her electric-emerald eyes. So is Anita a good synth or a bad synth?
“It’s a bit of a mystery, because the writers have been quite playful at the start,” said Ms. Chan, 32, who, after studying law at Oxford, traded a legal career for the Drama Center London, which led to roles in “Doctor Who,” “Secret Diary of a Call Girl” and “Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit.”
“I don’t think the show presents either a utopia or a dystopia,” she added. “It leaves it up to the audience to decide.” These are excerpts from the conversation.
Q. How did you and your fellow robots train for the roles?
A. Everyone on the show had to go through “synth school,” like “The Walking Dead” zombie school, but for robots.
So what did you learn in class?
We tried to come up with a universal physical language that all synths share. What this boils down to is that ultimately machines run on battery power, and every move has to be specific and economic and with a grace, eliminating all the little extras. Perfect steps, very precise, nothing very robotic, but something other than human. We decided that with the synths, their eyes would move first, then their heads and bodies. I couldn’t breathe, and I couldn’t blink too much.
Did you carry that physicality into your life?
God no! As soon as they called “cut,” I would slip into my bad posture and go home and slump on the couch.
William Hurt plays one of the first engineers to design synths.
He’s brilliant and brings so much to his character’s poignant relationship with his outdated synth, which holds all the memories of his dead wife.
What about his new dominatrix synth, who tends to his health?
[Laughs.] She’s terrifying. And it’s quite frightening that eventually this could be the way we go with an aging population.
Can you see synths in our future?
I don’t think we’re far off. I read the other day about a hotel in Japan that’s completely staffed by robots. Robots check you in, and robots clean your room. When you have Elon Musk saying that A.I.s could be in our future, I think you have to listen.
Would you get one?
I probably would — someone to run errands when I’m on set.
Why did you trade law for acting?
When I finished my law degree, I was offered a job at a big firm in London, but the long hours and being bound to a desk weren’t for me. I still find the law an interesting subject. But I would have been pretty miserable as a corporate lawyer.
You’ve quoted an article that said viewers were more likely to see an alien than an Asian woman on film.
I have been fortunate in that I have worked pretty steadily, though there are definitely instances where I’ve been told that I’m up for a part, only to have the auditions canceled because they were “going white.” And it’s a shame, because you want it to be about the best actor cast for the role, period.