In Sunny, it’s a robot that steals the show.
The Apple TV+ black comedy chronicles the tumultuous relationship between Suzie (Rashida Jones) and her eponymous domestic robot, Sunny (voiced by Joanna Sotomura). Sunny’s not your average clunky, gray robot with delayed reactions. She’s a domestic assistant with impressive dexterity and emotional intelligence.
In Japan, where the show is set, this AI bot arrives on Suzie’s doorstep from her husband’s electronics company as a consolation gift after he and their son disappeared in a plane crash. At first a surrogate companion, Sunny becomes a central character as significant as Suzie.
Though Sunny is based on Colin O’Sullivan’s 2018 novel The Dark Manual, the show takes some creative liberties in its adaptation (for instance, the male robot is gender-swapped for Robbins’ production), but the unnerving presence of Sunny translates.
In the book, O’Sullivan describes Suzie’s first examination of the homebot: “It has no features. It cannot show surprise or anguish or confusion, and yet Susie can see all of these emotions on its smooth blank face. Emotions? Is that what she means?” This pairing of AI and emotional intellect is the core focus for Sunny.
“It was interesting to think about Sunny as simply as we could while retaining some sort of emotional capability,” showrunner Katie Robbins explained to The Daily Beast’s Obsessed in a recent interview.
Robbins’ journey in creating the anthropomorphic presence of Sunny began with research into human-robot interaction. Robbins explained the theory that someone (for example, with severe depression or in the early stages of dementia) can get into the habit of communicating with a robot and then slowly grow more comfortable with reconnecting with people. Sunny takes on this responsibility in Suzie’s life during a period of inconsolable grief, she is the only ‘being’ Suzie can unabashedly vent to.
“On one level, there is something incredibly captivating and enticing about Sunny. In one scene, she’s adorable and the next she’s a total murderous bitch,” Robbins noted. “Both things feel very true to this inflexion point that we’re at as a society; AI is this bright shiny object and it’s also really, really dangerous.”
Sunny’s simple aesthetic—with the clean lines of Japanese design, painted a glossy eggshell white, and Kawaii expressions—offers a canvas on which human emotion can be applied. Also, Sunny is short in stature and has unexpected dexterity that allows her to engage in human activities: mix a drink, cook an omelet, and play a game of shogi.
Robotics engineer Craig Hobern joined the project during the design process, building prototypes of mechanisms and control systems to achieve this level of motion. Hobern noted his initial work was guided by Robbins’ creative teams sending pictures of “buildings, plants, ceramics, and retro toys as the inspiration for the design and iterations of the form.” The robot’s physical form was created by Wētā Workshop’s team, who have previously designed superhero suits for Thor: Love and Thunder and creature design and sci-fi suits for Pacific Rim Uprising.
Sunny rolls with an entourage of 13 people on set, alongside four support staff back at the workshop. As robotics supervisor Tyler Page explains, each person is responsible for a different element of Sunny’s physical ability; there’s “the practical Sunny animatronic puppet, someone in a Sunny performer suit to do over-the-shoulder [shots] for finer motor skills, a puppeteer wearing a vest with servers on each joint, so as she moves, Sunny moves in real-time. Also, a second puppeteer is working the wheel motors.” Each of Sunny’s puppeteers had to work very closely to become a synchronized, well-oiled machine so the complicated controls behind the simplest movements looked effortless.
On the engineering side, Hobern was challenged with making the animatronic response time as tight as possible, so Sunny was reactive to the world around her and her scene partner. Sotomura wore motion capture headwear: as she moved her head, Sunny’s head moved; as Sotomura blinked, Sunny blinked.
Sotomura’s helmet had a screen that showed Sunny’s perspective and a camera to track her facial and eye movements. “We take that data and then map it onto this digital avatar, effectively the Sunny face, that’s been manipulated by wherever Sotomura is looking and what her expressions are,” Hobern noted. “It just becomes this living, breathing robot that everyone buys into believing is a real being on set. When it all comes together, the illusion is very convincing.”
This almost instantaneous ability to have a performer’s movement mirrored by Sunny was vital in integrating the robot on set as a fellow actor. Robbins shared: “We wanted directors to be able to go and give the person playing Sunny notes on the day, like a living, breathing scene between Sunny and her scene partner. Ultimately, the show is about the connection between people and robots.” Here, Sunny’s commitment to puppeteering and practical effects is at odds with the show’s futuristic plot—a contrast that makes discussions around AI’s presence alongside humans all the more fascinating.
Sunny showcases a new level in a robot’s emotional capabilities in episode 5, ‘Joey Sakamoto’. While lost in the woods, Sunny disobeys her code by going behind Suzie’s back and rescuing a dying baby bird resulting in a robot experiencing deeply felt empathy and grief. For all the crew, this episode was a real challenge as the cold temperatures of rural Japan at night led to the Sunny robot shutting down. However, working through the elements resulted in some of the show’s most beautiful shots, including Sunny wandering the woodland with a beam of light shining from her chest.
This filming experience was particularly memorable for Page. “I still have such an emotional attachment to Sunny,” he shared. “Watching the monitors on set and seeing what the team was able to accomplish and the reactions of the other crew around… everyone was in love with Sunny.” The high-tech Sunny became a valued cast member on set and, like the show, the robot was at the heart of some tender moments with humans on and off the screen.
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