2020-04-01_Total_Film

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DECODINGALEXGARLAND’SHIGH-TECHHIGH-STAKESSHOWDEVS...

Tell us about your characters and how

they fit into Amaya...

SONOYA MIZUNO [Lily]: I find with

different roles you’re always trying to

make that gap between you and the

character smaller. For Lily, I felt like

I was just taking a lot off. Which was

much harder and scarier. We talked

about her being a truth-seeker. But

what was important was that she didn’t

feel like a typical protagonist.

NICK OFFERMAN [Forest, Amaya

CEO]: My character is a creative genius,

so that required some heavy leaning

on my classical training. I did a lot of

homework. It was incredibly fun to take

this great piece of writing, and insert

myself into it as though I could remotely

come up with even the most basic of

programming, let alone get into the

realm of quantum computing!

JIN HA [Jamie]: My character is Lily’s

ex, with whom she reconnects. He still

feels cosmically attracted to her, so the

stakes are incredibly high for him. But

that’s the story on a very micro scale.

There are also some larger questions

about technology and technological

advances, framed in terms of what

[Amaya] is trying to accomplish, and

what a tech genius’ dream or life goal is.

ALISON PILL [Katie]: I play the boss

[of the division]. She has a worldview

unlike anybody else in the world, in the

entirety of its existence, so far. That

[opens up] an exploration of quantum

mechanics, quantum computing, of

determinism, of real questions about

the nature of reality in the universe.

This is some of the best drama raising

the biggest questions that I’ve ever been

a part of. I couldn’t be prouder, and it’s

thrilling to watch.

Do you see tech as a friend or foe?

Or both?

ALEX GARLAND: I’m an optimist

by nature. But I do think it is very

clearly the case that technology and

technological advances are happening

at a rate that we are not able to keep

up with. It’s not the first time that’s

happened. But I always think of the

period of time when various societies

around the world decided to reject the

monarchies in favour of prime ministers

and presidents, with an awareness that

focused power creates problems.

So one needs to defocus the power

and create checks and balances. We’ve

been very comfortable with that state

for a few hundred years, and now

something like monarchy has

reappeared via technology, and it

doesn’t have the checks and balances

at all. I think it is literally dangerous...

Tara Bennett

DEVS STARTS ON BBC TWO LATER

THIS MONTH.

T

hough Devs is writer/director Alex Garland’s first TV series, it shares

thematic DNA with his recent cine-studies of how humanity is

walking a razor’s edge when it comes to technology (Ex Machina,

Annihilation). The eight-parter centres on Lily (Garland regular

Sonoya Mizuno), a computer engineer who believes a super-secret division of

her employer – San Fran tech company Amaya – could be behind her

boyfriend’s disappearance...

SEE THIS

IF YOU

LIKED...

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