Almost Human - J.H. Wyman Interview

Thanks to Darthlocke for the heads up.

IGN TV: Let’s start with the basics – where did this idea come from?
J.H. Wyman: Actually the inception of it -- I’m a big fan of old shows like Six Million Dollar Man, things like that -- but really how it came about was I’m actually desperately afraid of technology and how it’s sort of changing us and in what ways. And I started to notice some from very profound ways in my daughter, who’s 21. She would text me all the time, and I would always say to her, “Don’t text me. Pick up the phone and call me. I want to hear your voice. I’m your dad, when I hear your voice, I know when you’re okay or not.” But it was one of those things where she was like, “Dad, we just don’t communicate like that anymore.” I was like, “Wow, that’s really strange.” But other things started to occur to me about our connection and how we’re failing. Like if you and I have some sort of problem and I say, “I’m sorry,” and I have to come to you and say, “Listen, man. I’m really sorry about what I did. It was a mistake. Will you forgive me?”, a whole bunch of things are going on in my head, in my brain. Chemicals are firing, and I’m feeling empathy. I’m feeling remorse and things, and it’s very hard for me to have to get closer to you in order for you to forgive me. But usually in a text I can just say, “Hey, man. I’m so sorry. We all good?” And that’s the end of it, so there’s no connection.
Karl Urban and Michael Ealy in Almost Human.

It becomes that people don’t have any real understanding of how much humanity is being lost. So that’s sort of how it came about. I just thought, I would really love to tell a story and find a metaphor for the perils of technology and this great utopia we’ve been promised -- and the flip side of that. Everybody thinks about the great things, but they don’t think about the criminals. [Laughs] And what they’re going to have...

IGN: Karl’s character has a robotic leg. You think that would maybe help him embrace technology more, but it doesn’t seem like that’s the case.
Wyman: No, he hates it! He comes from a long line of cops. His father was a policeman. He just doesn’t like it. He feels very uneasy about it. He wants cops with cops, with people. So now that he’s forced to be sort of half a synthetic and to live with that, it’s avery big for him on a psychological level.
Michael Ealy in Almost Human.

IGN: What was it about Michael that made him the right guy to play this part?
Wyman: You know what? Michael Ealy, I’ve had my eye on him for awhile. He’s a really interesting actor because I think he’s done a lot of roles to date that are really good, but I think he’s a lot deeper than what we’ve seen. So when he was brought up, I went, “Oh, that’s sort of interesting.” As soon as I had a five-minute conversation with him, I realized this is not your average guy. He wants to dig deep, and he started thinking with some very heavy concepts about the robot and how we would do it. His subtlety and the way that he performs this man, it’s really going to blow you away. He’s so good. Really, I think this is the perfect thing of the right actor for the right role for the right time.

Read full interview at IGN