Eerie new drama Humans looks at robots in homes
Source: KERRY HARVEY
Actor Tom Goodman-Hill knew a lot about robots long before he was cast in the TV3 sci-fi drama Humans. Now 46, he admits to having been fascinated by all forms of artificial intelligence since his teenage years.
"I have a huge interest in it and I'm always following tech stories on line, although I'm not a gadget freak by any means," says Goodman-Hill, who also played Roger Grove in Mr Selfridge. "I spent almost my entire teenage years reading just about everything Arthur C Clarke and Isaac Asimov ever wrote and lots of HG Wells and Philip K Dick and Douglas Adams. I was steeped in it from a very early age and it's just great to be able to get something like this and feel like the research was already done."
A British-American production, Humans is set in suburban London where the must-have gadget for any busy family is a synth �C an android robot that appears eerily human. Goodman-Hill plays Joe Hawkins, a rather ordinary man who buys a synth, Anita (Gemma Chan), in the belief he is lightening the burden on his over-worked lawyer wife.
Hugely popular in Britain, Humans has been Channel Four's biggest hit since 1992's The Camomile Lawn and has been picked up for a second season. Goodman-Hill puts its popularity down to the fact it is a bit of a genre-buster. "Obviously, because there are androids �C synths �C in it, you tend to define it as science fiction but I think the way the show's made, it's more like a kind of domestic or family drama," he says. "The synth was supposed to be the solution to all Joe's family problems but he's not the most imaginative of men. He's just an ordinary guy and he doesn't think it through."
However, while synths bring Joe nothing but trouble, Goodman-Hill has not lost his fascination for them. "It's ridiculous isn't it? After making eight episodes of this series watching what happens, if I could afford one, I'd still get one. I just don't think I'd get Anita," he says, laughing. "I might do the sensible thing and get a male synth." His fiancee, Call The Midwife's Jessica Raine, would probably agree.
Meanwhile, Goodman-Hill is grateful he was not one of the actors cast to play a synth. They were put through a special training course aimed at teaching them not to show emotion �C something he thinks would be impossible for him. "It's not something I'd ever be able to do. I come with far too many bumps and creases. I'm far too asymmetrical to play a synth," Goodman-Hill says. "I've got one shoulder higher than another, cheeks all over the place �C there is no way. That would never happen. I can barely walk in a straight line. You'd never see me as a synth."
Even playing opposite them, is a challenge. "It's completely weird because you don't feel like you're getting anything back. It's the strangest feeling," he explains. "You feel like you're being reflected, which makes you think very, very hard about what you are doing, which is very disturbing because you become very hyper aware of your own tics and idiosyncrasies and that's a very strange feeling."
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