Alexander Skarsgård is a robot who loves TV in funny new Weitz brothers series Murderbot

Australia Broadcast Center

13-05-2025

Swedish star Alexander Skarsgård made a big mistake when depicting the security cyborg at the heart of Apple TV+'s kooky sci-fi comedy show, Murderbot.
Adapted from the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning books by American author Martha Wells, the show casts Skarsgård, who also executive produces, as a 'SecUnit'.
Fast Facts about Murderbot
What: A darkly comic sci-fi show adapted from The Murderbot Diaries novels by American author Martha Wells.
Directed by: Filmmaking siblings Chris and Paul Weitz
Starring: Alexander Skarsgård; David Dastmalchian; Noma Dumezweni
When: Streaming on Apple TV+ from May 16
Likely to make you feel: Less bad about watching too much TV
Part cloned human material, part AI-driven machine, it — SecUnit's preferred pronoun — is designed to protect humans who live and work in space colonies spread across the galaxy. It was not built for fun.
An early eye-popping scene establishes SecUnit has a mound where its bits would be.
"I made this really stupid call to wax my entire body for that shot," Skarsgård chuckles from the back of a car racing across London.
"I thought it would be funny if Murderbot was completely hairless, to really emphasise the Ken doll look. But I came to regret that, because it was excruciatingly painful. Then I realised I had to commit to that for a six-month shoot."
Filmed in and around Toronto — which stands in for meteor-bound mining colonies and strange new worlds overseen by an all-pervasive corporation — the show's big twist is that SecUnit has hacked the programming that prevents it from harming humans.
Hence the self-chosen nickname Murderbot, with plans to eliminate the scientific expedition under its care, including nominal leader Mensah (Noma Dumezweni, The Little Mermaid) and scientist Gurathin (David Dastmalchian, Late Night with the Devil).
Instead, much to Murderbot's annoyance, being around humans begins to rub off. SecUnit mostly watches hours of streaming TV, particularly Days of Our Lives-like soap opera The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon, featuring a fun cameo from Star Trek actor John Cho.
"I love that Murderbot gains free will and its inner monologue is all about these great adventures that it's going to go on, but it ends up procrastinating," Skarsgård says.
"That's very relatable. You have all these great plans, but you've just got to watch one more episode of your favourite show."
Viewers have had a long run of loving to hate Skarsgård: as skeevy tech bro Lukas Matsson on Succession; as Nicole Kidman's abusive husband Perry on Big Little Lies; and as conniving vampire Eric Northman on True Blood. He's also played full-of-himself tourist James in body horror film Infinity Pool and a vengeful Viking in The Northman.
With SecUnit pretty lax on The Terminator front, Skarsgård could have a bit more fun.
"I was eager to lean into comedy a bit more with a character who's not so self-assured," he says. "When I first heard about a sci-fi story called Murderbot, I was expecting something very different from this socially awkward android who just wants to be left alone to watch his soap operas."
As a child of the 80s who grew up watching Star Wars, Skarsgård was hooked in by Murderbot's original spin. "There's a lot of sci-fi out there, and some of it is very fun, cool and original. Others are a bit more derivative. This felt unique."
SecUnit's laconic narration is a big part of that, with Skarsgård combining snarky narratorial monologues with The Mandalorian-style masked acting. So much so that he and showrunners Chris and Paul Weitz (About a Boy) kept tinkering with it.
"We spent three weeks together recording and re-recording that, because it's such an integral element of the show," Skarsgård says.
Beyond the immediate threat of Trump's film tariffs, the rise of AI plays on many a screen-industry figure's mind.
"Chris and I used to have a schtick that we did about Hollywood," Paul Weitz says. "We'd say, 'We're down on our luck, don't crush us. We can still make you money.' I think we might be saying that to AI fairly soon."
Wells joined the brothers in the writing room. "Martha was our first audience," Chris says. "There's no point adapting this stuff if it doesn't fit what she had in mind. She's the quickest route to understanding why it appeals and was very generous in how we would expand on her story, bouncing things back and forth."
Chris worked with director Gareth Edwards on Star Wars prequel Rogue One and The Creator as co-writer, learning a lot about bedding in fantastical worlds.
"Gareth is really amazing at shooting very naturally, then amending it with CGI," he says. "That influenced our decision to shoot in real locations whenever possible, even complicated stunt sequences. We visited every single slag heap, quarry and mining installation in Ontario."
Reality matters in sci-fi. Paul reveals that some of the details they folded into Gurathin's backstory came from Dastmalchian himself.
"David talks very openly about being a recovering addict," he says. "Combining that with the idea that the character was an intelligence operative lends further architecture to this brilliant series."
And Paul suggests we have more in common with SecUnit than we might realise.
"We're constantly dealing in the drug of our own personality," he says. "SecUnit just has some clarity. It doesn't want to fall in love or anything physical. It just wants to do its job, which is to protect these space hippies, then watch its shows."
This angle captivated Chris. "One of the great things about Martha's book is the mundanity," he says.
"People aren't speaking highfalutin' science fiction talk. They're all hot messes and, in some ways, it's a workplace comedy of manners. Murderbot maintains that, even in the future, people are going to have complexes and neuroses, anxiety and depression."
Chris agrees.
"Especially the people we have manufactured as our instruments."
Murderbot premieres on Apple TV+ with the first two episodes on Friday, May 16.