Playing a robot is possibly the most difficult role you can have as an actor, because you have to take all your innate emotional responses and completely suppress them. Even the way you walk is affected.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I'm Dr. David Hanson, and I build robots with character. And by that, I mean that I develop robots that are characters, but also robots that will eventually come to empathize with you.
When I made 'Terminator 3,' I learned something about directing actors to behave like robots. And one of the key things I learned is that if an actor tries to play a robot, he or she risks playing it mechanically in a way that makes the performance uninteresting.
The most important thing for building a robot that you can interact with socially is its visual attention system. Because what it pays attention to is what it's seeing and interacting with, and what you're understanding what it's doing.
Part of the reason of being an actor is you like playing other people's lives and exploring all the psychologies in that and the emotions.
That's one of the things that's great about acting. You can play all the different aspects of a human being.
My first acting experience was a non-speaking role as a robot. My costume was a cardboard box covered in tinfoil, but I was so shy I refused to go on stage.
I get to delve into some of the most creative experience I've had as an actor on 'Mr. Robot.' I think there's a wide opportunity for actors to do that now more so than ever on television.
Machines are becoming devastatingly capable of things like killing. Those machines have no place for empathy. There's billions of dollars being spent on that. Character robotics could plant the seed for robots that actually have empathy.
The thing I adore about acting is that it's not me: you get to experience all these emotions, but essentially it's not you.
I just don't believe you're capable of being an actor unless you have a desire to experience your emotions in a public way.