Recommendations of the Editorial team
Alexander Skarsgård can be seen in an unusual role in the SCI-Fi comedy series “Murderbot” (Apple TV+). He plays a robot who has to protect colonists on a new planet and unintentionally develops feelings for them that he must not show – protective instinct, benevolence, understanding of human weaknesses. Skarsgård is also the co-producer of the first season, which is based on Martha Well’s narrative series “Diary of a Murderbot”. A conversation about diversity in space and the sensitivity of an artificial intelligence.
Murderbot has no genitals, as can be seen in a full view. In turn, they are considered a sex symbol. Is this role your liberation from image?
Ha! The following appealed to me: Murderbot has no sexuality, no gender, but also no hormones or wishes. He or rather: So it is quite confused by people and their strange, spongy feelings. From the fact that they are drawn to each other. Of course, this has humor potential. Murderbot is only prepared for communication, to give commands and receive.
If there were no voice-over, just their rigid look, they would sometimes look very threatening.
Do you think …? Find? This helmet makes me an inferior, cheap version of a safety unit. We wanted Murderbots to have nothing special about. At the same time, they are a safety unit, so they should look intimidating. The contrast arises between the appearance of Murderbot and his involuntarily funny monologue, the fact that it looks like someone who could be quite intimidating, but in reality only wants to be left alone. Someone who is socially awkward and wants to see soap operas. The key was not to use too much voice-over, not to explain too many things with it and not to compensate for defects in the rest of the story. But there was no way for us to leave out the voice-over comments.
They show a form of artificial intelligence that can become dangerous as soon as it acts independently.
With “Murderbot”, as in people who lead a certain type of internal monologue, the feeling that it is only a step of madness is made. Like in people who can be seen on your face. And in most of these cases, be it Ash from “Alien” or Robocop, you don’t know what they think. And you don’t know how close they are to be malignant. In this case, Murderbot is worried about what it is capable of.
The series has a various line -up, is very inclusive, and still looks like a sitcom in the style of “The Office”: no consideration of minorities.
The series plays in a distant galaxy. We don’t know when or where. So we felt that we had complete freedom to really cast everyone we wanted. It was about finding a dynamic of phenomenal actors from different places and with different backgrounds to form this group that feels like a unit, a group of people who hopefully appeals to the audience and who will love it – and also the different constellations in terms of love relationships between them.
How far are we from this ideal?
The people in “Murderbot” come from different times, different places, but also from our world, from the “Preservation Alliance”, which is much more liberal than the Grand Corporation. So they live in a society where you can love who you want. This gives Murderbot an additional level of confusion if there is a three -way relationship in a same -sex marriage and the robot observes this from a distance.