INDIANAPOLIS — The best way I can describe Apple TV+'s newest show, "Sunny," is a combination of "Big Hero 6," "Her," "M3GAN" and "Sherlock Holmes."
Rashida Jones ("Parks & Recreation," "The Office") stars in the mystery dramedy series as Suzie Sakamoto, an American woman living in Japan and grieving the disappearance of her husband (Hidetoshi Nishijima) and son in a plane crash. As a consolation, a roboticist (Jun Kunimura) gifts Suzie a companion robot from her husband's company.
"I like things that speak to me in a realistic way, and even if that's couched in something that's hyper-realistic or in the future or heightened mystery, it has to have a core, a center, and a heart," Jones said. "That really is what spoke to me, that the themes that it's addressing are universal, and they're not time-, place- or cultural-specific."
Joanna Sotomura ("Barry," "Quarantine") is tasked with the role of the title character — and it's not just a voiceover performance.
"It was incredibly surreal. It was definitely a real robot that we had on set. We had a 3-foot tall Sunny that I got to be rigged up to and move her head. When I spoke, she spoke. When she was sad, I was sad – or when I was sad, she was sad – we embodied each other by the end of the shoot," Sotomura said. "It was just so much to be able to use this sort of technology in this television show."
While trying to uncover what happened to her husband and son, Suzie makes a new friend (annie the clumsy), who regularly fights with the robot for Suzie's attention.
"It was incredibly hard for me to dislike or be mean to Sunny all the time because the robot is so cute, and Joanna is the loveliest person," annie said.
Also co-starring in "Sunny" are Japanese film legends Judy Ongg ("Love Can Forgive and Forget," "The Big Wave") and Kunimura ("Kill Bill: Vol 1," "The Wailing").
"I'm mother-in-law to Suzie, and I am a Kyoto person — a very authentic, genuine Kyoto woman, very traditional. But because there's a daughter-in-law who's American, there's a lot of conflict there," Ongg said.
"I'm a roboticist, just in the early stages of AI technology. In the story, I have many relationships that will be revealed in the episodes," Kunimura said.
Filming for the 10-episode first season took place in Kyoto, Japan, in 2022.
"I've been shooting on so many Japanese projects in Japan, but I've never shot right in the middle of Kyoto," said Nishijima ("Drive My Car," "Shin Ultraman"). "I just wonder how Rashida and the other filmmakers were able to convince and negotiate with the local people of Kyoto because I thought this was an impossible feat to accomplish."
Sunny the robot brings discussions of artificial intelligence, which seems to have a negative connotation in today's society, but that doesn't always have to be the case.
"There's a real sense of optimism to our story," said showrunner, writer and executive producer Katie Robbins, who adapted the story from the book "The Dark Manual" by Colin O'Sullivan. "Like art, poetry or music, AI is created by humans, so there is this real capacity for it to serve a generative, productive and positive role in our lives. And, at the same time, because it is created by humans, there's also capacity for it not to do that, so like any new technology, it is all about how we use the thing."
While the source material features a male robot, Robbins took the creative liberty to change the gender to focus on female friendship.
"I took on this job because I read Katie's original outline before there was even a script," said director, writer and executive producer Lucy Tcherniak ("Station Eleven," "The End of the F***ing World"). "I didn't know she was going to end up being one of my closest friends."
New episodes of "Sunny" are released Wednesdays on Apple TV+ through Sept. 4.