For somebody who used to journey a college bus with Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian, Rashida Jones is remarkably earthbound. Rising up in Los Angeles, the daughter of the “Mod Squad” actor Peggy Lipton and the legendary music producer Quincy Jones, she was so ensconced on this planet of mega-celebrity that it took some time for her to comprehend that the folks surrounding her—Frank Sinatra, Sidney Poitier, Michael Jackson—have been as iconic as they have been. That heady milieu would trigger most younger folks (say, her bus-mates) to lose themselves within the fame bubble. As an alternative, Jones did her homework and received into Harvard, the place she studied faith and philosophy, earlier than discovering fame on her personal, on the sitcoms “The Workplace” and “Parks and Recreation.” In a lot of her roles, as in her life, she initiatives a dry, discerning intelligence that cuts by means of the absurdity surrounding her. She is an excellent information to the world of the well-known.
That very same sane-in-the-midst-of-insanity high quality is on show in her newest mission, “Sunny,” a sci-fi sequence that premières this week, on Apple TV+. Based mostly on a novel by Colin O’Sullivan, the sequence, which was created by Katie Robbins, follows an American lady named Suzie (Jones) residing in Kyoto. After her husband and son are presumed useless in a aircraft crash, she receives a plucky, eager-to-please homebot named Sunny, who insists on serving to her clear up the mess of her life. Suzie begins to comprehend that her husband wasn’t the straightforward fridge engineer he claimed to be, and Sunny will be the key to discovering out who he actually was. Within the vein of “The Flight Attendant,” the present flings Suzie into an odd, perilous puzzle field, involving synthetic intelligence, yakuza assassins, and a condescending Japanese mother-in-law.
“I’ve by no means gotten the prospect to play this sort of function earlier than, any person who’s propelling a thriller ahead and has her personal baggage that she’s taking together with her,” Jones informed me lately. She was Zooming from her residence workplace in Los Angeles, the place she lives together with her longtime companion, the Vampire Weekend frontman Ezra Koenig, and their son. She wore a pink Hasty Pudding hat and aviator frames, and sat in entrance of bright-green cupboards embellished with hand-painted birds and flora. “I’m in my kooky, middle-aged period, the place I’ve determined I would like every thing to have coloration, after years of minimalism and mid-century Scandinavian sparseness,” she defined. In our dialog, which has been edited and condensed, we talked about robots, the state of Hollywood, eleventh-century Indian theology, and the time that Michael Jackson’s chimp, Bubbles, bit her on the hand.
You may have plenty of scenes with Sunny. How was it to behave throughout from a robotic?
The robotic was very high-maintenance. It took lots of people to make it come alive. There was any person controlling the larger spatial actions. There was any person coping with the software program for the display screen on the face. Generally we had an actor who simply had the palms, so they might do extra articulation with the fingers. After which we had the nice Joanna Sotomura, who performs Sunny. She was in a tent with a large helmet and a brilliant mild on her face, and she or he was making all of Sunny’s expressions and saying all of the phrases. So it was translating her expressions, however it meant that I by no means was in a room with Joanna.
You’ve acted throughout from Muppets, within the 2011 film “The Muppets.” Did that provide you with any expertise to attract on?
Sure! I cherished working with the Muppets, and I bear in mind having a sense, like, the fifth day of taking pictures, that I used to be having a full-blown dialog with Kermit. I wasn’t his Muppet performer; I used to be simply speaking to the hand within the felt puppet. And I used to be, like, Oh, that is what it’s going to really feel like when A.I. turns into a actuality. I bear in mind having that thought all these years in the past. It doesn’t take a lot to interact your senses: somewhat flip of the mouth, a voice, a persona. We’re so easy in that approach. So, sure, it was an important coaching floor, and there have been occasions I actually felt the essence of Sunny.
It’s fascinating that this present, which is about our relationship with know-how, is on Apple TV+. After all, Apple is the corporate most intimately concerned with most of our lives. I’ve additionally learn that, on Apple exhibits, the villains can’t use iPhones. Did you might have any directives like that?
No, however I had heard that, too. You possibly can’t vilify the cellphone. You possibly can’t have a damaged cellphone. However it’s humorous, as a result of with exhibits like this and “Severance,” it seems like Apple is understanding its personal emotions about what they’re: “Wait, are we the massive, onerous, scary tech overlord? Or are we those who’ve the nice intentions, and any person else is available in and adjustments the course of the nice factor we have been purported to do?” At the least they’re in remedy about it, is how I really feel. To me, the irony’s not misplaced about Sunny being this shiny, spherical, white factor that’s taking up my home and permeating my life. I’ve a kind of—it’s known as an iPhone. Clearly, this story is its personal factor, as a result of it’s set within the close to future and there are villains who aren’t essentially know-how. However there’s some coming to phrases with the truth that know-how is increasing and studying a lot quicker than we had ever imagined, and we’re compelled to reckon with this existential query: What does it imply to be human?
It’s a really well timed matter, particularly in Hollywood. A.I. was on the heart of the actors’ and writers’ strikes final 12 months. There’s this Scarlett Johansson dispute with OpenAI. What are your emotions concerning the function that A.I. might need in leisure?
I’ve heard folks say, “That is so scary. We don’t know how damaging that is going to be to many industries.” And I’ve heard folks say, “That’s what they stated about each new piece of know-how, together with the printing press.” However the printing press by no means realized stuff that we didn’t train it. That’s the half that I feel is horrifying. Very like the Web, it’s going to be the Wild West, and in some unspecified time in the future it’s going to be damaging sufficient that it’s going to should be pulled again into some type of consent-based operation. I don’t know the way they’ll do this. It does really feel just like the darkest persons are in control of the Web now—every thing from biowarfare to the darkish Internet. I’ve all the time been obsessive about tales about rising know-how and the worry of know-how.
Properly, I’d rely “The Social Community,” concerning the beginning of Fb, by which you performed considered one of Mark Zuckerberg’s attorneys. Is that one thing that drew you to that mission, too?
Sure, however particularly as a result of the script took a perspective. We didn’t even know the way a lot [social media] would permeate our lives on the time the film got here out. However all of these things had an origin story. This individual had a motive, a willpower to do one thing due to his personal circumstance. He was rejected. “Let me repair that by controlling the forces that rejected me.” You perceive that individual. You relate to that individual. You might need compassion for that individual. And that’s precisely the sort of one that made this stuff that spiral uncontrolled.
“Sunny” has plenty of parts apart from robots: yakuza mobsters, grief. What drew you to it?
I’ve by no means actually performed a lead in a sequence like this, the place the story is being informed by means of this one individual’s looking out. I felt like, I’m sufficiently old, I’m prepared for the problem. I really like the sense that this character, in contrast to me, is remoted. She’s a bit misanthropic. She got here to Japan and located her personal folks, her household—after which she misplaced that very immediately. It does really feel like a present about determining the place you belong. And the grief half is fascinating to me. Grief has very a lot formed my life previously 5 years, as a result of I misplaced my mom 5 years in the past. I grew to become a mom, after which seven months later I misplaced my mom. That squeeze in each instructions perpetually modified me.
