Like most people in the modern world, Rashida Jones has a love-hate relationship with the omnipresence of technology.
“I’m constantly fighting it,” the actress tells WHO. “I miss human connection. I miss connection with nature if I’m spending too much time on the screen … I know A.I. is here and it’s going to impact everybody’s industries, including my own, but I do work hard to try to restrict my own relationship with it, to keep it separate from me. I’m not ready to merge. Yet.”
In new 10-part sci-fi mystery series Sunny, Jones, best known for comedic roles in sitcoms like The Office and Parks and Recreation, plays Suzie Sakamoto, an expat living in Japan given a robot by her husband’s tech company to alleviate her grief after he and their son vanish in a mysterious plane crash. Meeting her A.I. co-star (voiced by Joanna Sotomura) was a surreal experience for the star.
“I did a little meet and greet with the robot studio. She was really rude. No, I’m just kidding. It was cool,” Jones says.
“I immediately felt, like, affectionate towards her. They had her put her arm around me and I was very easily manipulated into believing this thing was a sentient being. Very quick. I asked for a hug. It was embarrassing!”
Jokes aside, Jones says she had to dig deep to find common ground with her cantankerous and rebellious character.
“I’m a bit of a rule follower, and Suzie is very much not. She doesn’t give a s–t about anything,” she explains. “I kind of like this idea of somebody who has decided that her way of moving through the world is to just kind of knock everything over and not follow the rules. And then, you know, she’s ultimately a very sensitive person who needs connection, because who doesn’t?”
Jones could relate to scenes where Suzie gives in to her grief over losing her husband.
“That stuff felt very connected for me,” she tells WHO. Jones, 48, whose father is legendary music producer Quincy Jones, welcomed her first child, a son named Isaiah, with her partner, Vampire Weekend singer Ezra Koenig, in August 2018.
Just eight months later, in May 2019, her mother, Mod Squad and Twin Peaks actress Peggy Lipton, died from cancer at age 72.
“It was sort of like back-to-back-to-back-to-back, just wrenching, pulling my heart in all different directions,” Jones told NPR.
“The thing that’s the craziest about birth and death is just the utter rawness of feeling. It’s like something cracks in you. It’s very binary, both things – becoming a mother and losing my mother – like, there’s my life before and there’s my life after.”
Those experiences allowed Jones to tap into her character, Suzie. As for Suzie’s sidekick, Sunny, the robot digs deep into the human experience by exploring our relationship with technology. It’s very timely, given a day doesn’t go by that most of us aren’t connected to technology in some way.
“We’re still trying to work out what makes us human by creating something that’s almost like us,” Jones says. “And I think that is at the heart of the show. Like, why? Why are we here? Are we meant to be connected with other people? Are we meant to be connected with robots?”
(Sunny premieres Wed., Jul. 10 on Apple TV+)
