Latest news with #Skarsgard
Sydney Morning Herald
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
Robots are everywhere onscreen but are we just looking at ourselves?
I know how I'm supposed to feel about artificial intelligence. Like anyone who pushes words around on a page, I worry large language models will relegate me to the junk pile. I worry smart machines will supplant artists, eliminate jobs and institute a surveillance state – if they don't simply destroy us. I nurture these anxieties reading article after article served to me, of course, by the algorithms powering the phone to which I have outsourced much of my brain. This is how I feel in real life. But when it comes to fiction, fellow humans, I am a traitor to my kind. In any humans-and-robots story, I invariably prefer the fascinating, enigmatic, persevering machines to the boring Homo sapiens. And in spite, or maybe because of, our generalised AI angst, there are plenty of robo-tales to choose from these days. The protagonist of Murderbot, the homicidally funny sci-fi comedy premiering on Friday on Apple TV+, does not reciprocate my admiration. Murderbot (Alexander Skarsgard), a sentient 'security unit', is programmed to protect humans. But it doesn't have to like them, those 'weak-willed', 'stressed-out' bags of perishable flesh it is compelled to serve. Or rather, was compelled. Unbeknown to the company that owns it – a company called the Company, which controls most of the inhabited galaxy – it has disabled the software that forbids it from disobeying. ('It' is the pronoun the show uses; from a physical standpoint, Murderbot has the face of Skarsgard but the crotch of a Ken doll.) It is free to refuse, to flee, to kill. Loading So what does this lethal bot (technically, a cyborg, its circuitry enmeshed with engineered organic matter) want to do with its liberty? Mostly, it wants to watch its shows – thousands of hours of 'premium quality' streaming serials it has downloaded into its memory. It still has to keep its day job, however; if the Company learnt it hacked itself, it would be melted down. Murderbot is assigned to provide security for a team of hippie scientists from an independent 'planetary commune' on an exploratory mission. Their mutual dependence, as they discover a dangerous secret on the desolate planet, provides the pulpy, bloody plot for the first 10-episode season (based on the novel All Systems Red by Martha Wells). But the real killer app of the story, adapted by Chris and Paul Weitz, is the snarky worldview of the artificial life form at its centre. Skarsgard gives a lively reading to the copious voiceover, but just as important is his physical performance, which radiates casual power and agitated wariness. Murderbot is odd, edgy, unmistakably alien, yet its complaint is also crankily familiar. It just wants to be left in peace to binge its programs. As for our own shows, we lately seem to be swimming in stories about robot companions. The film Robot Dreams (Stan* and Amazon Prime Video) is the bittersweet story of a dog and its mail-order android. In The Wild Robot (Netflix), a stranded robot channels her maternal energy towards an orphaned bird. In M3GAN, whose sequel premieres in June, a child's companion bot carries out her protective mandate all too enthusiastically. (M3GAN, like the retro-bot in the German Netflix thriller Cassandra, complicates the pattern in which female-coded robots tend to be for nurturing and male-coded robots for murdering). These stories follow age-old templates — the fairy godmother, the gentle giant, the golem that breaks its master's control. But there is also often a modern anxiety about how artificial intelligence might transform us, which is built into the quirky, one-season Sunny. In that 2024 Apple TV+ series, Suzie (Rashida Jones), an American woman in near-future Kyoto, inherits a 'homebot' named Sunny from her engineer husband, who went missing in a plane crash, along with their son. The show's thriller plot involves the mob and a black market in hacked bots, but its heart is the prickly relationship between Suzie, a longtime technophobe, and Sunny. Sunny – perky, solicitous, a bit needy – was literally made to be loved, with a lollipop head, expressive anime eyes and an endearing voice (provided by Joanna Sotomura). Sunny wants desperately to help, a compulsion that can be exhausting – not unlike the parasocial relationship we have with much of our technology. Sunny is a robot, but she could be your phone, your unintentionally activated Alexa or Siri, the unbidden pop-up on every website asking if you have questions for the chat assistant. Loading A recurrent concern in these stories is that technology is becoming more humanlike – intrusive, insinuating, seeking to create connection. But another anxiety – echoed in series such as Apple TV+'s Severance and Netflix's Black Mirror – is that human consciousness is becoming more machine-like, digitisable and thus controllable. (The universe of Murderbot includes not just robots but 'augmented humans' with chip-enhanced brains. Murderbot considers them Tinkertoy imitations.) To become a machine, after all, is to become usable and, perhaps, dispensable. It's worth noting how many contemporary robot stories are about defective units – the glitchy Sunny, the 'anxious, depressed' Murderbot – or outmoded ones, as if to dramatise how our society and economy treat hardware, whether flesh or silicon, that has outlived its utility. Maybe these broken-toy stories are a way of wrestling, in advance, with our ethical obligations to whatever intelligences we eventually create. Or maybe watching these themes play out in robot stories makes our mortality easier to contemplate – like play-therapy puppets, the bots hold the nightmare at arm's length and abstract it. Here, at least, we have something in common with the protagonist of Murderbot, who, at the end of a long day's killing, wants nothing more than to unwind with shows about humans. Indeed, the closest we get to seeing its gooey, emotional side is through the serials it binges. It is voracious but not indiscriminate; it dismisses the drama 'Strife in the Galaxy' as 'an inferior show, filled with implausible plotlines'. (Even rational, software-based consciousnesses have hate-watches.) Loading Its favourite, on the other hand, is 'The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon', a space melodrama featuring a human starship captain (John Cho) who falls in love with a navigation robot (DeWanda Wise). The show-within-a-show is staged as a wonderfully campy potboiler in the style of old-fashioned syndicated sci-fi. Murderbot devours season after season, without any sense of irony, as an escape from its confounding entanglements with actual people. 'The characters were a lot less depressing than real-life humans,' it says. 'I don't watch serials to remind me of the way things actually are.'
The Age
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
Robots are everywhere onscreen but are we just looking at ourselves?
I know how I'm supposed to feel about artificial intelligence. Like anyone who pushes words around on a page, I worry large language models will relegate me to the junk pile. I worry smart machines will supplant artists, eliminate jobs and institute a surveillance state – if they don't simply destroy us. I nurture these anxieties reading article after article served to me, of course, by the algorithms powering the phone to which I have outsourced much of my brain. This is how I feel in real life. But when it comes to fiction, fellow humans, I am a traitor to my kind. In any humans-and-robots story, I invariably prefer the fascinating, enigmatic, persevering machines to the boring Homo sapiens. And in spite, or maybe because of, our generalised AI angst, there are plenty of robo-tales to choose from these days. The protagonist of Murderbot, the homicidally funny sci-fi comedy premiering on Friday on Apple TV+, does not reciprocate my admiration. Murderbot (Alexander Skarsgard), a sentient 'security unit', is programmed to protect humans. But it doesn't have to like them, those 'weak-willed', 'stressed-out' bags of perishable flesh it is compelled to serve. Or rather, was compelled. Unbeknown to the company that owns it – a company called the Company, which controls most of the inhabited galaxy – it has disabled the software that forbids it from disobeying. ('It' is the pronoun the show uses; from a physical standpoint, Murderbot has the face of Skarsgard but the crotch of a Ken doll.) It is free to refuse, to flee, to kill. Loading So what does this lethal bot (technically, a cyborg, its circuitry enmeshed with engineered organic matter) want to do with its liberty? Mostly, it wants to watch its shows – thousands of hours of 'premium quality' streaming serials it has downloaded into its memory. It still has to keep its day job, however; if the Company learnt it hacked itself, it would be melted down. Murderbot is assigned to provide security for a team of hippie scientists from an independent 'planetary commune' on an exploratory mission. Their mutual dependence, as they discover a dangerous secret on the desolate planet, provides the pulpy, bloody plot for the first 10-episode season (based on the novel All Systems Red by Martha Wells). But the real killer app of the story, adapted by Chris and Paul Weitz, is the snarky worldview of the artificial life form at its centre. Skarsgard gives a lively reading to the copious voiceover, but just as important is his physical performance, which radiates casual power and agitated wariness. Murderbot is odd, edgy, unmistakably alien, yet its complaint is also crankily familiar. It just wants to be left in peace to binge its programs. As for our own shows, we lately seem to be swimming in stories about robot companions. The film Robot Dreams (Stan* and Amazon Prime Video) is the bittersweet story of a dog and its mail-order android. In The Wild Robot (Netflix), a stranded robot channels her maternal energy towards an orphaned bird. In M3GAN, whose sequel premieres in June, a child's companion bot carries out her protective mandate all too enthusiastically. (M3GAN, like the retro-bot in the German Netflix thriller Cassandra, complicates the pattern in which female-coded robots tend to be for nurturing and male-coded robots for murdering). These stories follow age-old templates — the fairy godmother, the gentle giant, the golem that breaks its master's control. But there is also often a modern anxiety about how artificial intelligence might transform us, which is built into the quirky, one-season Sunny. In that 2024 Apple TV+ series, Suzie (Rashida Jones), an American woman in near-future Kyoto, inherits a 'homebot' named Sunny from her engineer husband, who went missing in a plane crash, along with their son. The show's thriller plot involves the mob and a black market in hacked bots, but its heart is the prickly relationship between Suzie, a longtime technophobe, and Sunny. Sunny – perky, solicitous, a bit needy – was literally made to be loved, with a lollipop head, expressive anime eyes and an endearing voice (provided by Joanna Sotomura). Sunny wants desperately to help, a compulsion that can be exhausting – not unlike the parasocial relationship we have with much of our technology. Sunny is a robot, but she could be your phone, your unintentionally activated Alexa or Siri, the unbidden pop-up on every website asking if you have questions for the chat assistant. Loading A recurrent concern in these stories is that technology is becoming more humanlike – intrusive, insinuating, seeking to create connection. But another anxiety – echoed in series such as Apple TV+'s Severance and Netflix's Black Mirror – is that human consciousness is becoming more machine-like, digitisable and thus controllable. (The universe of Murderbot includes not just robots but 'augmented humans' with chip-enhanced brains. Murderbot considers them Tinkertoy imitations.) To become a machine, after all, is to become usable and, perhaps, dispensable. It's worth noting how many contemporary robot stories are about defective units – the glitchy Sunny, the 'anxious, depressed' Murderbot – or outmoded ones, as if to dramatise how our society and economy treat hardware, whether flesh or silicon, that has outlived its utility. Maybe these broken-toy stories are a way of wrestling, in advance, with our ethical obligations to whatever intelligences we eventually create. Or maybe watching these themes play out in robot stories makes our mortality easier to contemplate – like play-therapy puppets, the bots hold the nightmare at arm's length and abstract it. Here, at least, we have something in common with the protagonist of Murderbot, who, at the end of a long day's killing, wants nothing more than to unwind with shows about humans. Indeed, the closest we get to seeing its gooey, emotional side is through the serials it binges. It is voracious but not indiscriminate; it dismisses the drama 'Strife in the Galaxy' as 'an inferior show, filled with implausible plotlines'. (Even rational, software-based consciousnesses have hate-watches.) Loading Its favourite, on the other hand, is 'The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon', a space melodrama featuring a human starship captain (John Cho) who falls in love with a navigation robot (DeWanda Wise). The show-within-a-show is staged as a wonderfully campy potboiler in the style of old-fashioned syndicated sci-fi. Murderbot devours season after season, without any sense of irony, as an escape from its confounding entanglements with actual people. 'The characters were a lot less depressing than real-life humans,' it says. 'I don't watch serials to remind me of the way things actually are.'
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Alexander Skarsgard Kisses Pedro Pascal on Cheek During Ravenous Standing Ovation for ‘Pillion'
Sealed with a kiss! Alexander Skarsgard felt the love during an electric seven-minute standing ovation for his Cannes film Pilion, and returned it two-fold with a warm embrace and by planting a wet one on the cheek of a smiling Pedro Pascal who was on his feet. The directorial debut of Harry Lighton had its world premiere Sunday morning inside Salle Debussy, and the crowd — filled with guests like Eddington star Pascal, The Substance filmmaker Coralie Fargeat and Babygirl David Hinojosa — lapped up the sexy, BDSM-themed dramedy. The Un Certain Regard selection centers on Colin, a shy London lad played by Harry Melling, who encounters the smoldering and charismatic leader of a motorcycle club named Ray, Skarsgard, on Christmas Eve at a local pub. After a steamy oral sex session in an alleyway, Ray takes Colin under his wing by making Colin his submissive as they get tangled up in a relationship built around power dynamics. More from The Hollywood Reporter Wes Anderson, Benicio Del Toro's 'The Phoenician Scheme' Cannes Premiere Draws Polite Ovation Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson's 'Die My Love' Sells to Mubi for North America, U.K., Latin America 'A Pale View of Hills' Review: An Overly Cautious Adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro's Haunting Novel In his review, The Hollywood Reporter's chief film critic David Rooney praised Lighton's debut for how delicately it presents the film's sexually-charged themes while also giving allowing Colin to have an arc and maintain his humanity. It's also very funny. 'Both Melling and Skarsgard show an intimate understanding of how the power dynamic between their characters works, but what gives Pillion its kick is the friction sparked when Colin starts wanting more,' writes Rooney. 'Melling conveys the paradoxical elevation of Colin's low self-esteem through the subservient relationship with an appealing pluckiness. He neither pleads nor demands, merely stating his wishes with a firmness that matches Ray's refusals.' Also in Rooney's review, he explains the meaning behind the word pillion: 'The word 'pillion,' more commonly used in Britain than the U.S., refers to the seat occupied by the passenger riding behind the driver on a motorcycle. Also known in queer parlance as a bottom.' It's also worth pointing out that Skarsgard's character sports an extra large pierced prosthetic, adding another high-profile example of Hollywood's prosthetic obsession as of late. During his film's introduction, Lighton, who admitted to having some nerves in presenting his first film at Cannes, said he hoped the film made the audience laugh, think and a little 'horny.' Helping accomplish the latter, Skarsgard turned up on stage in some tight black leather pants. His ensemble choice got a shout out from Cannes chief Thierry Fremaux prior to the screening, prompting Skarsgard to turn around and shake his backside. The 2025 Cannes Film Festival continues through May 24. Best of The Hollywood Reporter 'The Goonies' Cast, Then and Now "A Nutless Monkey Could Do Your Job": From Abusive to Angst-Ridden, 16 Memorable Studio Exec Portrayals in Film and TV The 10 Best Baseball Movies of All Time, Ranked
Hindustan Times
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Hindustan Times
Alexander Skarsgard delves into kink in Cannes film 'Pillion'
* Film adapted from novel "Box Hill" by Adam Mars-Jones * Director wanted to dispel preconceptions about kink * Skarsgard: Comedic moments often caused by on-set blunders CANNES, France, - British director Harry Lighton wanted to dispel preconceptions about kink with his feature debut "Pillion," featuring Alexander Skarsgard, he told Reuters at the Cannes Film Festival. Set in London, Lighton's romantic drama explores the submissive relationship between Colin, portrayed by Harry Melling, a shy traffic officer who lives at home with his parents, and Skarsgard's Ray, a handsome biker with a mysterious past. Eager to meet Ray's demands for domestic obedience, Colin begins to discover what his partner describes as an "aptitude for devotion". Their relationship is consensual, and its terms are clear. Lighton told Reuters he had wanted to make a film about submissive relationships for some time, so when Adam Mars-Jones' "Box Hill" novel came along, he jumped at the opportunity to create an adaptation. "There's a lot of surface preconceptions about kink and the challenge of digging beneath some of those appealed to me," he told Reuters on Sunday. The film is peppered with moments of comedy so as to, in Lighton's words, "lighten the load" and "riff on some of the tropes of romantic comedies and see how they map onto an atypical submissive/dominant relationship." Melling and Skarsgard said comedic moments were often inadvertently caused by "clumsy and awkward" blunders on set. "In reality there are a lot of awkward moments when you change position," Skarsgard told Reuters. "Just by leaving in those awkward transitions and stuff makes it feel real but it also is kind of funny because you're not used to seeing that on screen." Melling, known for portraying Dudley Dursley in the Harry Potter series and a chess champion in "The Queen's Gambit," told Reuters he was relieved the audience laughed during the film's world premiere on Sunday. "The weird thing about doing a movie is you don't really know if it is funny at the time of doing it," he told Reuters. "Pillion" is competing in the festival's second-tier Un Certain Regard category, alongside Harris Dickinson's "Urchin" and Kristen Stewart's "The Chronology of Water."
Al Bawaba
04-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Al Bawaba
Alexander Skarsgård jokes about playing a "Swedish, nonviolent James Bond"—But is there more to it?
ALBAWABA - Alexander Skarsgård teases a nonviolent, diplomatic twist on James Bond. Due to the fact that the property was sold to Amazon by its owners, Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, and the fact that producers are grappling with the question of how to reintroduce 007 after the character was killed off in Daniel Craig's final film, No Time to Die, the future of James Bond is still unknown. With Alexander Skarsgard's idea of a Swedish James Bond, a superspy with all of the necessary Bond trappings—tuxedo, license to kill, way with the ladies—but with a distinctly Scandinavian flair, all stakeholders might do worse than examine the possibility of a Swedish James Bond. Alexander Skarsgård attends The 2024 Met Gala (/AFP) The topic was brought up in an interview with The Times of London, in which the actor from Big Little Lies claimed that he had previously served in his country's national duty. He stated, "I did it because I was 19 years old, I didn't know what I wanted to do, and I wanted to be James Bond for 18 months." As Skarsgard was being pressed on the possibility of bringing this concept to the big screen, he joined the spirit of the offering by telling the following: I have the potential to be a James Bond who is Swedish, friendly, diplomatic, and skilled at negotiation. Absolutely no violent acts will take place. It will consist only of boardroom meetings in which individuals attempt to reach a consensus. Everyone is anxious and is making a valiant effort to prevent a disagreement or complications; this trait is characteristic of Swedish culture. I'll take a break! LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - FEBRUARY 24: Alexander Skarsgård (/AFP) In addition to his recent role as a computer mogul in Succession, Skarsgard is set to make his next appearance in Murderbot, an AppleTV+ series that is based on the science fiction novella series Murderbot Diaries written by Martha Wells. Skarsgard first gained widespread recognition for his work in Zoolander. The character that Skarsgard portrays is an android who serves as a security guard for humans who are at work on other worlds. "To lean into comedy—that's a real blast," he said in an interview with The Times, after having previously played a series of more serious characters.
