Sunny Stars Rashida Jones & Hidetoshi Nishijima Dive Into the Show’s Robots & Hikikomori | Interview
hi I’m Matt merer with movie web it’s a pleasure oh it’s a pleasure to speak with you today thank you hello this is such a cool show but also says so much about loneliness and its relationship to technology and uh you just keep on to watch after uh every every finale uh I love your character Rashida she’s very complicated she sort of came to Japan with this glorified vision of loneliness and way but she abandons that when she meets Masa and starts a family uh could you talk about that contradiction and and uh how that sort of plays out uh with her her character yeah I think I mean I think you know there is this sort of thing people say that you you keep inviting the lessons you need to learn into your life and and Susie running away from her life to sort of like you know delve deep deeper into her own loneliness to go to Japan and then upon arrival immediately meeting a guy who who does just that he he disrupts this like I you know this kind of idyllic idea of loneliness because he suffered it the the worst you possibly can he keep a wori and she’s romanticized it and he’s like it’s not romantic and then that person being you know not the cure to her loneliness but but um but a way kind of out of this of this path that she’s decided is the only path for her I mean it is kind of like if there’s a destiny there and then you know the show starting with that thing that was kind of her salvation being in question being gone and also being fully brought into question because she’s not even sure who he was anymore so she gave herself over and abandoned this this kind of like romantic ideal and now it’s all gone and once again she has she’s like confronted with like this big lesson which is like can she depend on other people and sometimes robots to to help her you know discover the truth about her husband’s past and and maybe even you know help her connect in a way that she thought she never would again yeah beautiful uh hosi uh you have a movie star presence uh you elevate everything you’re in and I was surprised this is your first uh Western project from what I read the first time you acted in English uh I would think you’ve been asked to do it before I I could be wrong but why did you choose Sunny to uh be the first and and do you plan to keep doing it [Music] again first it was the script and I felt this was possibly something that no one has seen before it’s a Sci-Fi it’s a profoundly deep human drama it’s about interpers relationships and our relationships with uh Ai and uh robots as we step into the future it’s a dark comedy as well and maybe there’s a hope that we can there’s we can find um that could be a solution to what we’re struggling with um now and also of course the big component was Rashida her Talent of course but even more than that it was her humanity and a big heart that maybe want to be part of this yeah it’s it it’s a lovely result this International production but also this combination not just of culture but of genre all these different things uh I asked uh Annie the clumsy and Joanna how to sort of distill it or summarize it and it’s surprisingly difficult how would you sort of describe Sunny to someone rashed yeah it’s a lot of things it’s a lot of things um but I think it’s this kind of like um it’s like a dark humorous fairy tale um set in near future Japan about a woman dealing with loss and grief um and contending with uh a a a robot that is kind of like thrusted onto her but she ends up forging a friendship with or depending on to um to like to pursue this mystery around her husband’s real identity and why she’s being chased but it’s also about as you said it’s about loneliness and and grief and connection and H and I think the distillation is Humanity like whether it’s you know people being able to connect with each other or you know this like robot presence um being a hindrance or like maybe a tool in connecting with each other or or feeling connected yeah yeah like technology it could be either way depending on how we use it uh Hoshi uh you uh like like I said this is a western sort of production but it’s so naturally It Feels So lived in uh and Colin o solivan I think who wrote the book he lives in Japan he uh it feels very uh real does it reflect sort of the Japan that you know I mean obviously it’s more specific to Kyoto but does it feel like a real reflection of Japan to you either in the way it looks at loneliness or culture or technology we actually did shoot in real Center of kto I’m a Japanese actor did a lot of shoots but it’s my very first time to be able to shoot in the center of kto and this was possible because the crew of this show really showed respect uh to to the Japanese culture and the Japanese people really felt that and allowed us to do so and uh for the Japanese people even for the Japanese the Japanese culture is very uh complex complicated the Japanese old culture and the more we dig deeper we do discover new values and sometimes there are elements maybe we create new values uh in this modern time from digging deep into our old culture so there’s still a lot of mystery towards our culture even as being Japanese and we have the Western people and the Western perspective uh through a western perspective uh you’re seeing a different value maybe we’re able to dig something from a very different perspective discover something very different so through this show of course there are exaggerations and it’s uh we’re talking about the future so we’re talking about there are portrayals of what may happen in the future but if but you do feel that the Japan portrait is very real yeah another set of eyes can reveal something uh you you know yourself uh thank you so much for discussing this uh it’s a very lovely show I appreciate you thank you thank thoughtful questions
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The magnetic performers Rashida Jones (Parks and Recreation) and Hidetoshi Nishijima (Drive My Car) joined MovieWeb’s Matt Mahler for a discussion about their new Apple TV+ series, Sunny. They touched on their characters, Nishijima’s English-language debut, and the show’s themes of loneliness and technology.
Sunny, the highly anticipated, 10-episode, darkly comedic s ci-fi mystery, will premiere globally with the first two episodes on Wednesday, July 10, followed by one new episode weekly through September 4 exclusively on Apple TV+.
Sunny stars Jones as Suzie, an American woman living in Kyoto, Japan, whose life is upended when her husband and son disappear in a mysterious plane crash. As “consolation” she’s given Sunny, one of a new class of domestic robots made by her husband’s electronics company. Though at first, Suzie resents Sunny’s attempts to fill the void in her life, gradually they develop an unexpected friendship. Together they uncover the dark truth of what really happened to Suzie’s family and become dangerously enmeshed in a world Suzie never knew existed.
Produced for Apple TV+ by A24, Sunny is written and executive produced by Robbins, through her shingle Babka Pictures. A24 and Jones also serve as executive producers. The series is based on the book “The Dark Manual” by Japan-based award-winning Irish writer Colin O’Sullivan.
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