Cast Quotes for Electric Dreams

6 September 2017

Geraldine Chaplin (The Impossible Planet)

What was it that attracted you to this project and did you do anything by way of research for this, or is it all there in the script?

I don’t think I’ve ever been offered anything sci fi before, and I read the story and I loved it. And I like the fact that the director is also the writer [of the adaptation], that’s really important for me. It seemed a natural evolution, I’ve played all the grandmas – the nice grandmas, the horrible grandmas, the murdering grandmas, the cannibal grandmas – I did a whole load of horror films, and then this came along and I thought “Well, maybe there’s a whole new career in sci fi!” But it’s hard to do research on a 345-year-old woman, I didn’t meet any! I do think it’s all there in the script. Although it’s set in the future, the humans in it are very recognisable. There’s the good guy, the bad guy, the greedy guy, there’s romance and falling in love. It’s future and past, and the set is just incredible.

 

Timothy Spall (The Commuter)

Why do you think so many of Philip K. Dick’s stories are still being made today?

I think people’s imaginations are being neutered by the amount of access they can get to information just by pressing a button. It’s a testament to the originality of what he did way, way before technology ever became so prolific that this original fantasy speaks to people. People lap it up because there’s so much information out there but this is something that touches the human spirt as well as the imagination. It’s more than just a ride with Philip K. Dick. Take for instance Blade Runner that is an incredible story about dystopian future with robots and androids but even the androids use emotion. I think it’s the emotional complexity with the flight of the imagination which will always be appealing to people especially in a world where we are neutered by too much information.

 

Steve Buscemi (Crazy Diamond)

How would you describe your Electric Dreams episode, Crazy Diamond?

My character is Ed Morris. He works in the corporate world at this place where they make synthetic beings that are very lifelike and have consciousness, emotions and are self-aware. Which he finds really interesting. I think he really loves what he does, but he also has this other side to him that I think yearns for a time that he didn’t know about, that he’s only read about. And the music from that time, well he’s obsessed with the 70s, so he holds on to that stuff, and he’s got a boat that he loves.

He fancies himself as a creative guy and an adventurer, but I think in the world that he lives in that’s sort of discouraged. People can do it to a certain point, but in the end, you really have to play by the rules. They don’t let you do everything that you want. In fact, it’s quite controlled – what you eat, how much you eat. So he looks for anything that lets him express his individuality.