Murderbot Exploring More Than A New World
Murderbot is a series about an android that has human elements like skin, and he is to act as a sec unit or a security unit. This is a refurbished model, and he’s assigned to protect colonists on the remote world who work for a company to find minerals. The series is based on novels by Martha Wells. The series creators told me that Wells hit on something on her books. They adapted the series casting Alexander Skarsgård as the Murderbot and surrounding him with actors, David Dastmalchian, Noma Dumezweni, Akshay Khanna, Tamara Podemski , Tattiawna Jones, and Sabrina Wu. We’ll hear from all of them as the series explores the Murderbot’s role in this world.
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Alexander Skarsgård: It was a long process. Uh, Chris and Paul Weitz, the, the writers, showrunners, and I teamed up about over a year before we started shooting the uh the show. So we have plenty of time to discuss the themes of the the show and the character and, and it was a real treat that you’re not always privy to as an actor um to have that much time to develop the character and Um, discuss everything from the, the intricate details of the helmet to broader themes and, and, and, uh. On casting choices of the, the other team members and on, so it was a it was a great privilege to be part of the journey from the very beginning and then um It’s a long creative process and not there would be new discoveries during the pre-production process, but also during both shooting the show, um.You come with ideas, thoughts and ideas every day, and then sometimes things change and you learn new things and that’s what keeps it exciting and fun on set. And even in post, I feel like a lot of it.You shape it and a lot of it changes, especially because there’s so much. In a dialogue, the inner monologue, the voiceover going on.That was something that we tweaked a lot and tried different versions of and got together and spent several weeks together in a, in a studio, just recording voice over to kind of see how that would play against the, the dialogue and the scene and um so it was, it, it, it took a long time but it was also really fun creative process. The, the, the commentary, what it revealed was that in some ways, he’s really trying in important ways, he’s really trying to figure things out a little bit.
It’s all very daunting, um, cause Murdoot hacks its governor module.It, it, it gains free will, autonomy, um. But it can’t show its clients, the humans, it’s a signed to protect.That it’s got free will because then it’s afraid that it’s gonna get captured and just picked apart for pieces and like scrap metal, um, so it’s, it’s basically waiting for the right moment to go off and start its own big adventure and that it’s calling itself Murot and it’s, it’s dreams, um. But then it starts to kind of procrastinate.Um, so it’s, and meanwhile, it’s watching this. Space soap opera, The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon, um, and I think it’s a very relatable and, uh, in a way, human instinct to kind of, you have these big dreams, but then you just wanna watch one more episode and then one more episode and then I’ll, I’ll deal with the rest of my life tomorrow. I’ll, I’ll get back and start tomorrow.
And, but also because Murdoot has now gained free will, it’s now forced to kind of um confront its own. Humanity in a way, um.And that is all very new. It, it, it, it, it’s um.Because it’s an Android, it’s, it’s, it’s a robot with organic elements. Um, it’s a, it’s a journey of self-discovery, figuring out In many ways, through watching the space soap opera, what humans are like in, can I relate to these humans?
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