In Sunnyit’s a robot that steals the show.

The black comedy for Apple TV+ tells the turbulent relationship between Suzie (Rashida Jones) and her eponymous household robot Sunny (voice: Joanna Sotomura). Sunny is no ordinary, clunky, gray robot with delayed reactions. She is a household helper with impressive dexterity and emotional intelligence.

In Japan, where the series is set, this AI bot from her husband’s electronics company arrives at Suzie’s door as a consolation gift after he and her son disappear in a plane crash. Sunny starts out as a surrogate companion, but becomes a central character, just as important as Suzie.

Although Sunny based on Colin O’Sullivan’s 2018 novel The Dark HandbookThe show takes some creative liberties in its adaptation (for example, the gender of the male robot is swapped for Robbins’ production), but Sunny’s unsettling presence comes across well.

In the book, O’Sullivan describes Suzie’s first examination of the homebot: “It has no facial features. It can’t show surprise, fear, or confusion, and yet Susie can see all these emotions on its smooth, expressionless face. Emotions? Is that what she means?” This combination of AI and emotional intelligence is the crux of Sunny.

“It was interesting to look at Sunny as simply as possible while still maintaining a certain emotional capacity,” showrunner Katie Robbins explained in a recent interview with The Daily Beast’s Obsessed.

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Robbins’ journey to creating Sunny’s anthropomorphic presence began with research into human-robot interaction. Robbins explained the theory that someone (for example, someone with severe depression or early stages of dementia) can get used to communicating with a robot and then slowly become more comfortable interacting with humans again. Sunny takes on this responsibility in Suzie’s life during a time of inconsolable grief. She is the only “being” that Suzie can feel comfortable venting to.

“On one level, there’s something incredibly compelling and seductive about Sunny. She’s adorable in one scene and a total murderous bitch in the next,” Robbins noted. “Both things feel very true to this inflection point we’re at as a society; AI is this bright, shiny object and at the same time really, really dangerous.”

Sunny’s simple aesthetic – with the clean lines of Japanese design, painted in glossy eggshell white, and kawaii expressions – provides a canvas on which to express human emotions. Additionally, Sunny is small in stature and has an unexpected dexterity that allows her to engage in human activities: mixing a drink, cooking an omelet, and playing a game of shogi.

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Robotics engineer Craig Hobern joined the project during the design process, building prototypes of mechanisms and control systems to achieve this level of motion. Hobern noted that his initial work was guided by Robbins’ creative teams, who sent images of “buildings, plants, ceramics and retro toys as inspiration for the design and iterations of the form.” The robot’s physical form was created by the team at Wētā Workshop, which previously designed superhero suits for Thor: Love and Thunder and creature design and sci-fi suits for Uprising in the Pacific.

Sunny travels around the set with an entourage of 13 people, as well as four assistants in the workshop. As robotics supervisor Tyler Page explains, each person is responsible for a different element of Sunny’s physical ability; there’s “the hands-on Sunny animatronic puppet, someone in a Sunny actor suit doing over-the-shoulder (shots) for finer motor skills, a puppeteer wearing a vest with servers on each joint so Sunny moves in real time as she moves. There’s also a second puppeteer operating the wheel motors.” Each of Sunny’s puppeteers had to work very closely together to become a synchronized, well-oiled machine, making the complicated controls behind the simplest movements look effortless.

​From an engineering perspective, Hobern faced the challenge of making the animatronics’ reaction time as short as possible so that Sunny could react to the world around her and her scene partner. Sotomura wore a motion capture headgear: when she moved her head, Sunny’s head moved; when Sotomura blinked, Sunny blinked.

Sotomura’s helmet had a screen showing Sunny’s perspective and a camera to track her facial and eye movements. “We take that data and then transfer it to this digital avatar, essentially Sunny’s face manipulated by Sotomura’s gaze direction and her facial expressions,” Hobern noted. “It just becomes this living, breathing robot that everyone believes is a real being on set. When it all comes together, the illusion is very convincing.”

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This almost instantaneous ability to have Sunny mirror an actor’s movements was crucial to integrating the robot on set as a co-actor. Robbins says, “We wanted the directors to be able to give cues to the person playing Sunny on the day itself, like a living, breathing scene between Sunny and her scene partner. Ultimately, the show is about the connection between humans and robots.” SunnyThe 40 Fingers’ reliance on puppetry and practical effects clashes with the show’s futuristic plot – a contrast that makes discussions about the presence of artificial intelligence alongside humans all the more fascinating.

Sunny shows a new level of emotional capabilities for a robot in episode 5, “Joey Sakamoto.” While lost in the forest, Sunny violates her code by rescuing a dying baby bird behind Suzie’s back, causing a robot to feel deep compassion and grief. This episode was a real challenge for the entire crew, as the cold temperatures of rural Japan at night caused the Sunny robot to shut down. Despite the elements, however, it produced some of the show’s most beautiful shots, including Sunny roaming the forest with a beam of light emanating from her chest.

That filming experience was particularly memorable for Page. “I still have such an emotional connection to Sunny,” he said. “I watched the monitors on set and saw what the team was doing and how the other crew members were reacting… everyone was in love with Sunny.” The high-tech robot Sunny became a valued member of the cast on set and, as in the show, the robot was the focus of some tender moments with people on and off screen.