Humans: Interview with Ivanno Jeremiah who plays Max

8 May 2018

Explain a bit about Max and how you would describe him as a character.

Max is one of five siblings, originally created by Dr David Elster himself. They’re a special group of synthetics, each with a characterising trait and originally built to look after Leo, the late David Elster’s son. Max’s particular trait turned up to the max as it were, on the dial, is love. He loves the world, he loves nature, he loves Leo and of late with his expanded responsibility in the world he loves his people. He’s a character who’s developed over the past three seasons. In season one he was effectively ten years old and his naivety was shown on his sleeve. Season two he was pretty much early twenties, and he’s very much a man by the time we see him in season three.

He is very innocent in season one and by the start of season three he’s leading the synths so things have changed. What are your thoughts on his evolution in that time?

At the end of season two we left Max and Flash and Mia at the railyard, which was the beginnings of what is now the big railyard settlement… assuming in the year that’s passed more and more people have come over to Max’s commune in exile, and he was elected by the people to lead the synth escapees, refugees if you were, and I think he’s potentially the perfect candidate for it. I mean imagine if a modern day leader led only with love. I think we’d see a very different kind of world.

Do you think leadership is going to change him at all?

As it does anyone. But we won’t really see the greying of hair, the humanely outward representations of change.

For season one you had to go to ‘synth school’. What were the biggest challenges when you first started the role and when you first started synth school?

If we go back to there, 2014, four years ago, if you imagine a rehearsal space in East London, Sope Dirisu who plays Fred, my brother in the show, and Dan O’Neil our movement coordinator tried to work out how a synth would run. There are videos of Colin Jackson and based on those, we were trying to work out a run that’s not only efficient but simplistic and based on good posture and economy.

 

So the synth run is based on Colin Jackson?

Well I mean it’s a kind of a combination of that and a few other things. The ‘going’ was fine but the stopping was terrible and we were hobbling around for weeks afterwards, having come up with a way for synths to run but very, very sore afterwards!

 

What do you think is the most difficult thing when you’re playing a synth in terms of body movement?

I’m quite a fidgety person anyway. I have all sorts of idiosyncrasies and a tendency to swagger around the place with an almost lackadaisical air. It’s maintaining the good posture, the uprightness, no itching, fidgeting. It’s pretty hard being called cut on because there’s a tear in your eye or you blinked too much in a scene.

 

Do you think you’ve had to match or change or evolve Max’s movements with the evolution of his mental state?

I found that crucial and I pitched that in as soon as possible. In the same way my old BMW 97 Mable, namely, drives a lot differently to for example a rental. It handles differently and has its own age and its own character, a little bit rustier in there and little tendencies.  Max has wear and tear and he’s committed suicide before and come back to life. He’s felt pain. He’s been tasered, he’s been left in dark and dank places. So the things he carries with him give him a lot more weight and a lot more history.

 

There’s the conscious synths and the unconscious synths. I guess for you you’ve played a conscious synth as an unconscious synth. Do you think it’s harder to play the conscious synth than the unconscious one?

Of course the movement language is one thing but doing that alongside a world of emotion and being new to this whole society and learning things and… you’re juggling a lot more plates.

 

There’s an ongoing debate around artificial intelligence. Is it something you think about? Does doing this show make you think ‘wow, this could actually happen in the future?’

Growing up I’ve always been fascinated with these doomsday representations of what AI could be. You’ve even got ‘The Terminator Theory’ where it would be enemy number one and turned upon. Or ‘The Divergence Theory’ If you set a robot to create paperclips in the most efficient way from now until eternity, then quite soon humanity would be eradicated because some way down the line we would get in the way of that production of that. There’s that. But I’m starting to peel away and think that thus far, humans have suffered a lot more at the hands of NI, natural intelligence, if we talk about neglect that’s happened over the years, historical genocides, pain and natural disasters. I can’t imagine that this devil that we don’t know could do anything worse, could destroy us any sooner than we would ourselves. Also there are benefits in AI. Not only medical advancements and everything, but helping us make the most of the short existence that we do have. Giving us more time to be ourselves. Responsibly move towards technology and maybe clean our own houses before we go so far into the future.

If this technology was available would you have a synth of your own?

Yes.

 

Ah interesting! Would you?

Yes. I’d neither be first in the queue to collect one nor keep it running all of the time. I’ve got a friend who’s got a silly saying: “pay your bills as late as possible and be the last to cross the river”. I wouldn’t rush towards but yeah I like the idea of it.

 

What kind of things would you use it for?

All sorts of secret missions, food runs…

 

Can you imagine yourself becoming friends with it like some characters do, or would you be able to say “this is a robot, this is a machine”?

I’d have to have some sort of separation. I can imagine the complacency, the sheer laziness that would be unleashed from myself if one, I didn’t have to scrub the dishes, and two, really have to do anything for myself.

 

The nature of Max’s life is that he always seems to be having a hard time. Is that hard work for you? What’s that practically like on a day to day basis?

Thank you for paying attention to that! I’d like to pose this to the writers, even though they’re not here. There have been some situations… Pinewood Studios’ water tank is possibly one of the most difficult situations we’ve been in, I’ve been in, in which when Max does martyr himself, back in season one. He jumps off a bridge and lands in the Thames. Now practically in terms of shooting this we went to Pinewood Studios – beautiful tank, it’s like fifty meters by fifty meters by fifty meters deep – with a great scuba team and where almost every British underwater scene has been filmed, so like the age old Bonds and everything, so it was a great place to be in. I’m wearing about five layers and a mod coat, fur lined boots, jeans, t shirt and gloves. I didn’t really need negative weights to send me down into the water. Not only were there gentlemen for effects pouring sludgy bluey kind of stuff to try to create the murk of the Thames, one had to fall with impact from standing into the water, equalise all the air – basically breath out and have no air in my lungs so no bubbles came out since synths don’t breath – and also leave one’s eyes open, no change of facial expression… this was particularly difficult!

 

How do you rehearse for a scene like that?

There was no chance to. It was only a couple of takes. It was so hard. But, yeah, we managed to get it.

 

The cast have been together four years since the beginning. What’s that like? How do you enjoy working with the rest of the cast?

It’s actually a pleasure. I mean there have been some healthy gaps in between each season which means turning up at a desk read, you can chart people along their lives. Especially some of the younger members, you see Pixie for example shooting up like a beanstalk, now so intelligent. People getting married, people having got a dog and grown a beard for the first time… it’s a great vibe. It’s almost, some of the table reads do feel a little bit like the first day back at school after a long summer holiday. What a great cast to share it with.

 

You’ve already said if the technology of synths was available you would have one. So which member of the cast would you take home to be your personal synth?

I would say – so this is not what I am saying – I would say Gemma Chan. Not even as Mia. As a person I admire her intelligence, her selflessness, what she does politically. Not only in the Time’s Up campaign, #MeToo; you see her rallying for everyone. During these past four years she’s been selflessly sharing what she knows. And I’ve had the opportunity to grow with this as well in the industry. So I respect and admire her. I would say Gemma but it’s the same across the board. I mean Emily… Sope is doing amazing things. So I’d probably take the whole rest of the family with me.

 

What’s the one job you would make that synth do? Or not? Which would you save them from?

Actually having to deal with true human tragedy and actual emotion. Which I assume is possibly the hardest thing to grasp… I’d probably keep them from having to wash my dirty gym stuff! That would just be in inhumane, that gym bag has been there far too long.

 

Anything else?

Amazing, amazing writing from Sam and Jon. It’s been a joy to play Max this time round. The circumstances are relentless. Just when you think things are safe and things are OK with Max it just gets worse. It’s a spiral, it’s a roller-coaster ride of a season for actor and character. It was amazing to play. Not everyone may be what they seem. Sometimes the enemy is within.