Interview with Ivanno Jeremiah

18 October 2016

So, Ivanno, at several points in series one, we wondered whether Max was going to make it.

You and me both! But he’s a strong ’un.

What’s Max been up to in the months between series one and two?

He’s been on an adventure. He’s on a mission with Leo [Colin Morgan]. They’ve set up software to alert them to synths that may have become conscious, so they can get to them before any other groups with ill will. It’s like a collective.

Are there some new antagonists this year?

Yeah, certainly in terms of enemies within. There’s a whole new malignant body trying to use these developments but perhaps not with the best intentions.

How have Max’s experiences changed him?

He’s a lot more mature. If Max in series one was quite the 12-year-old, here he’s about 21. He hadn’t experienced much in the world at first, but now, having come back to life, seen the way humans treat each other,… All these things have built him up. If you think about the Monday’s Child rhyme, he’s Saturday’s Child in series one, loving and giving, but by the end of series two he’s a Child of the Sabbath: fair and wise and good in every way.

Where does he see his future?

I like to think of him as an optimist. He’s a striver and will always choose love above anything else, despite the tragedies he’s experienced. What he wants is love and a home. He’s just wants to live, and find other people to look after and nurture.

You and Colin spent most of series one running around in the cold and wet. Are you indoors a bit more this year?

I have an interesting relationship with the costume department! We were inside a bit more during the height of summer, and Max’s wardrobe was hard utility, thick wool and fur-lined boots. That wasn’t the easiest.

How has Max’s relationship with Leo evolved?

It’s completely changed, based on experience and conflicting desires which are common even among friends I grew up with. You love them on a DNA level, but they aren’t in the same place as you are any more. Max’s only choice is to leave Leo alone. He strikes up a relationship with a synth called Hester [Sonya Cassidy] who is the product of pain, and he sees that quite early on. She’s very mean, but he’s aware that she cannot think on the same open level as Leo and Max – she suffered a huge amount of abuse at the hands of her owners, so she’s become a product of that pain and tries to reinflict it. Max wants to start his own family, in a way.

How has Max’s new consciousness affected your performance?

It’s been fun. He was quite basic, quite a young person, but now he has less restricted movement, he can mimic and feel human interaction with more confidence. Now I can deepen the character and his thoughts are slightly closer to my own, it’s not quite as much of an imaginative leap for me.

Was it easy to slip back into synth mode?

We had to go back into Synth School, where it was a case of building on the basics, embellishing the gestures and filling things out in a more human way. It was like jumping back on a horse.

How has the response to series one affected you?

I’ve been surprised by how widespread it’s been. I’ve been to Spain, France, Morocco, and there were people aware of it or doing double takes in the street. It touches on a lot of sci-fi fans’ desires and a lot of human questions. It slices society down the middle, even down to my Jamaican barber in Brixton. He’s constantly presenting debates about AI to me.

Where do you stand on that debate?

I’m scared shitless about the pressures of technology and how fast we’re moving. I’m from the Nokia 3210 generation, and the idea that we’re doing all our banking on tablets now is crazy. And then you think we’re 20 years behind Silicon Valley… I’ve looked at quite a lot of papers, wondering whether we’re flying too close to the sun. We have to strive to progress, but I hope we aren’t stung by our curiosity. Elon Musk came out with the Paperclip Theory: if you programme a robot to produce paperclips in the most efficient way from now to eternity, quite early on it would eradicate humanity because we’d just get in the way. It would do that purely out of practical considerations, not out of malice. I love getting clued up on these nuances in the show.