Summary

Collider’s Steve Weintraub talks with Murderbot showrunners Paul and Chris Weitz and stars Alexander Skarsgård and Jack McBrayer.

Apple TV+’s new series Murderbot is adapted from the book series by Martha Wells about an adroid that goes rogue and struggles with emotions and connections.

Skarsgård discusses how Murderbot is a refreshing departure from his previous darker roles, what it was like finding the character through voiceover, working with his good friend Jack McBrayer, and the Weitz Brothers talk about production and adapting the show to screen.

When Alexander Skarsgård received the script for Apple TV+’s now-critically-acclaimed series Murderbot, his first thought was that he wasn’t looking to be the next Terminator. He’d just come off “quite weird, dark projects” like Robert Eggers’ The Northman and Brandon Cronenberg’s Infinity Pool, and was looking for a “palate cleanser.” From co-creators and brothers Paul and Chris Weitz, best known for American Pie, Antz, Star Wars: Rogue One, Murderbot couldn’t be further from the “testosterone-filled” sci-fi Skarsgård was anticipating. Adapted from the book series by Martha Wells, the Weitz Brothers introduce us to a “socially awkward android” (Skarsgård) who manages to override its subservient module to tap into its own free will. It uses this freedom to dub itself Murderbot and, rather than choose violence, watch copious amounts of content, including its favorite series, a space opera titled The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon. Murderbot’s journey takes the cyborg on an emotional roller coaster and dangerous adventures with a human crew it reluctantly finds itself getting close to. After a special screening of Episodes 4 and 5 in Los Angeles, Collider’s Steve Weintraub had the opportunity to moderate a Q&A with Skarsgård, the Weitz Brothers, and Jack McBrayer (30 Rock), who plays Navigation Officer Hordööp-Sklaanch in Sanctuary Moon. Check out the full conversation in the video above or the transcript below to find out why Skarsgård broke his own rule after True Blood, how his longtime friendship with McBrayer led to this collaboration, and all the behind-the-scenes adaptation and production details with Paul and Chris Weitz.
‘Zoolander’ Gave Alexander Skarsgård The Wrong Impression of Hollywood

Thanks, Ben Stiller.

Image via Paramount Pictures

COLLIDER: Alex, a lot of people are very particular about their IMDb profile pic. It’s a fantastic photo, but I just want to point out that it’s a very unique photo. You’re in a tuxedo with underwear and socks. I’m just curious, how did you pick this? How did that happen? ALEXANDER SKARSGÅRD: I picked the outfit, obviously. I don’t remember why I wore that… I do remember why. It was because I was at an event and I was going to present an award, and the year prior to that, Zac Efron had taken his shirt off. I think it was the MTV Movie Awards. I also wanted to show some skin, but I felt like taking the shirt off had been done. So then I was like, “Well, what else can I show?” Legs. CHRIS WEITZ: I thought it was the pants shortage that followed the COVID logistics. SKARSGÅRD: [Laughs] The underwear that I’m wearing in that photo are actually Jack [McBrayer]’s. JACK MCBRAYER: Okay, you start stories that make me sound terrible. [Laughs] This is correct. There was a wardrobe malfunction for the underwear that he intended on wearing to the event. SKARSGÅRD: And what was the malfunction? What happened with the other pair? MCBRAYER: They sent you a pair, but they were the wrong size. They were baggy like a diaper. SKARSGÅRD: Oh, yeah! MCBRAYER: I’m not lying. So, we looked at each other, and I was like, “Do you want to wear my underwear?” And to be fair, I am, like, this close to being OCD, so all of my underwear is spotless. In fact, it was probably quite new. And also, we’re very good friends. None of this matters, but yes, those are my underwear on IMDb. I’ve arrived!

If you don’t mind another individual question, I love the movie Zoolander, and that is, I believe, your first role. From what I understand, you were out here with your dad for something, and you auditioned. It was your first audition, and you booked Zoolander. Talk a little bit about being in Zoolander and nailing your first audition. SKARSGÅRD: I was here on vacation. My dad was shooting a movie, The Glass House, I believe, was the title of it. It was 2001, and I had just kind of started out in Stockholm. I was doing a play out there, and I didn’t have representation out here, obviously, but then my dad’s manager, at a dinner, was like, “Hey, you’re starting out. I’ll send you out an audition.” And it was for Zoolander. It was incredible. I was an absolute dream because a week later, I was in New York shooting with Ben Stiller and the gang. But what would happen was that it made me think that booking a job in Hollywood was very easy, because I remember going back to Sweden after, and I was like, “Oh, it’s a walk in the park. An audition is basically you walk into the room and Ben Stiller is sitting there, and then you read a couple of lines, and then they fly you business class to New York and put you up in a nice hotel.” Then it took six years until I booked the next job. So, I was off to a great start and then was very, very slow for many years after that.

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All of you have done so many things in your career, and we all know about the things that were super successful, but I’m curious for each of you, what’s something that you worked on that you wish more people had seen, something that you’re really passionate about? AUDIENCE: Antz! PAUL WEITZ: People saw that compared to a lot of things. CHRIS WEITZ: We’ve got much more obscure stuff. I made a film called A Better Life, which was shot in East Los Angeles and is half in Spanish. It’s about an undocumented immigrant and his kid, and very few people saw it, but Demián Bichir was justly nominated for Best Actor for his performance, and that was very satisfying for me. But I do wish more people saw it. PAUL WEITZ: For me, either a movie called Grandma, Lily Tomlin, or a movie which really very few people saw called Being Flynn with Robert De Niro, which is based on this great book, Another Bullshit Night in Suck City. Unfortunately, I was not able to use that title. MCBRAYER: 30 Rock. [Laughs] No. Actually, an Apple project I worked on called Hello, Jack! The Kindness Show, a preschool show. I worked very, very hard on it, and I’m very proud, but the algorithm needs a little support, too. I was very proud of that, and I do wish more people had seen that. That would have been nice. SKARSGÅRD: A movie called The Diary of a Teenage Girl, probably. It was a movie that came to me through Jack, actually, because he called and he said, “My friend, Marielle Heller…” she was the director of it. It was her first feature, and a very, very low-budget movie, and the whole crew was her friends, basically. Jack called and said, “My buddy has this script. Would you want to read it?” And I fell in love with it. It was incredible, and I had an amazing time shooting it. So, thank you for that experience, Jack. Thank you for everything you’ve done for me. And for the underwear. PAUL WEITZ: I want to just add one perspective, which is I did a film called American Dreams that Willem Dafoe was in, and nobody saw it. But when it came out, Willem said, “Too bad it didn’t do even worse because then it’s like a cult thing, but it’s only if really nobody saw it.” [Laughs]
The Author of the Book Series Was Heavily Involved in the Making of ‘Murderbot’

Martha Wells was kept in the loop the whole time.

Jumping into why you guys are here tonight, you are at 97% on Rotten Tomatoes after 65 reviews. That’s what we call a critical darling, and, by the way, it’s deserved. What does it mean to you guys after putting in so much work? Because this shit is not easy to do, to have it so well reviewed and fans loving it. CHRIS WEITZ: Oh, it feels amazing. I was telling Paul that I’m like a rat with cocaine, going and entering it on Rotten Tomatoes and double-checking that we’re still there. Did one of those bad reviews I definitely saw online sneak in under the wire to bring us down? SKARSGÅRD: Did you read all the reviews as well? CHRIS WEITZ: No, because what if they weren’t as good as I think they were? PAUL WEITZ: I read the one bad one. CHRIS WEITZ: Thanks a lot, Slant Magazine. Actually, there are two. I believe there are two bad ones now, but I’m not sure who the other son of a bitch is. Fuck those people! But I just want to point out that, seriously, 65 reviews being that positive is a real accomplishment. CHRIS WEITZ: It’s great. The funny thing is, due to Apple, we were less constrained in the making of this in terms of the tone and the strangeness of what were trying to do, all of us, that I’m actually really surprised that it’s turned out as well as it has in people’s eyes. There’s also the source material that was so important to try to get right, or at least right in a way, because there are any number of ways that people think that it could be, of course. PAUL WEITZ: Basically, you have different audiences when you’re making something. In this case, Martha Wells, who wrote the books, was our first audience. We basically put everything from the first book, All Systems Red, in, but then we needed to add some things. So anything that we were thinking of, we talked with Martha about. For instance, there’s a new character in here. We would bounce stuff off of her, so she was involved throughout the process. It was really cool to send her things as things were developed visually, and as we were doing cuts and then seeing it with the VFX. That’s a really important audience. When you’re making something, it’s kind of terrifying if you worry too much about what critics are going to think, and it can really inhibit you, so you try to find ways. And Alex was our partner from the get-go with it, but in terms of actors seeing it, Martha was the big audience for us. Also, we’re very grateful for anyone who’s watching it.
What’s the Secret to Apple TV’s Sci-Fi Successes?

“If you’re making science fiction, you should appreciate what it is to be part of a fandom.”

I’m a huge fan of Apple TV and the stuff that they’ve been producing, specifically sci-fi. It is easily the best of all the streamers. It’s just fantastic. If you look at all the shows that are sci-fi-based, what’s in the water over there? Seriously, what are their notes like? CHRIS WEITZ: I think that they’re fans, which you’d think that you should be. If you’re going to make science fiction, you should appreciate what it is to be part of a fandom or to have a headcanon of things. Jamie Erlicht, who I think was a big force behind Silo, read All Systems Red because he was looking for something like Silo, or something akin in terms of the fandom, and he was just a fan. We’re very fortunate in having that at Apple. In a really, often very corporate environment for getting things made, when people are personally invested in it, I think it helps a lot. Obviously, this is based on a successful book series, but I’m curious when you’re going in to pitch Apple, are they asking you, “What’s your three-year plan? What are you thinking? How this is going to go?” Because nowadays, you obviously know they’re looking for things that are going to go. PAUL WEITZ: No, they didn’t ask that. I don’t know why. At least about the three-year plan. No. Not really. I think because we loved All Systems Red, and we sort of felt like a first season could map onto that book. CHRIS WEITZ: Yeah, I think that’s about right. All Systems Red ends in a really beautiful way that we wanted to be the end of the first season. So, then we were faced with the prospect of adapting a 140-page novella into 10 episodes. Some people have noted that the episodes are a bit short. [Laughs] PAUL WEITZ: That’s actually somewhat purposeful, because I think sometimes when you have hour-long stuff, you have to do padding unless you genuinely have that much story to do. So, that was a big thing, which was really cool that Apple allowed us to do, which was to have this be a half-hour or less, as opposed to saying no, because almost all sci-fi is an hour long. Did you guys debate doing four or five episodes instead of the 10 and making them longer? One of the things that’s really cool about every episode is it ends on a cliffhanger. It makes you want to hit play on the next one immediately. How did you figure that out? CHRIS WEITZ: It’s a serial, a bit of the kind that Murderbot would watch in a way. It was nice to kind of string things out a bit more rather than just being a miniseries in that sense. I feel like there are a lot of shows where people sit in conference rooms and discuss what just happened in the last scene and argue about it, and we didn’t want those scenes. So, it felt as though if we kept it more in a sort of half-hour length, but spread it out, it’d be like an album. Do you remember albums? [Laughs] They’re round, you play them, and then one song would follow the other. We liked the idea of it being like a series of good pop songs. PAUL WEITZ: I was actually thinking a little of the Peanuts comics when we were working on it. Any line that a character has, you know it came from that character. The characters are so distinct.
‘True Blood’ Almost Made Alexander Skarsgård Turn Down ‘Murderbot’

After starring in The Northman and Infinity Pool, the actor wasn’t looking to be the next Terminator.

Image via HBO

Alex, I’m sure you’re offered a whole bunch of scripts. What was it about this one that said, “I really want to do this?” You’re also an executive producer on it. SKARSGÅRD: There was an element of surprise when I started reading it. I wasn’t familiar with Martha’s novellas prior to the script landing in my lap. Hearing the title, I was told, “It’s a sci-fi action adventure show called Murderbot.” I definitely expected the character to be a testosterone-filled tough guy kind of murderbot, and I was like, “Alright, I think I know what this is. It’s in the vein of, like, Terminator or RoboCop. Something like that.” I had just done The Northman and Infinity Pool, so quite weird, dark projects, and I wasn’t really looking for something… Especially with The Northman, there’s a lot of testosterone in that character, so I was like, “I’m not sure I want to do Murderbot after that.” But then I started reading it, and I was introduced to this socially awkward android who loves soap operas. That’s a wonderful feeling when you start reading something, and you expect it to go in one direction, and you’re completely blindsided. I’m like, “Wait, what’s happening? This is going in a completely different direction.” Tonally, it was the palate cleanser that I needed after those pretty intense projects. Again, intense in a really good way. Those were extraordinary experiences, but I think I was ready to do something a bit more tonally different and a character that was tonally a bit more comedic. Then we got on the phone, and I kind of liked these guys. I was like, “I think this could be a fun collaboration there.” They’re okay writers. They seem to know what they’re doing. What is it like, as an actor and as creators, to sign on to something that could go for multiple seasons, for a number of years? How much do you debate what could be a five-year contract? SKARSGÅRD: A lot. I haven’t done it since True Blood. I’ve done movies or limited series since. You were in True Blood? [Laughs] SKARSGÅRD: I was for a brief seven years. It was an incredible experience, but I was also very adamant after that about, like, I don’t want to sign on to do anything for that long unless I really love the character and the people I’m doing it with. But again, I just thought this was a really wonderful character, so I was like, “I think this is going to be quite fun.”

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Jack, was it a text message from Alex that was like, “Hey, I’m filming something and I think there’s a role for you?” How does that work? Because you guys are clearly BFFs. SKARSGÅRD: I’m wearing your underwear right now. MCBRAYER: You’ve got to stop that. [Laughs] It really was that. I know it sounds so crazy, but what an opportunity to work with your buddy. And then, of course, I have to hype y’all up — this is a dream team right here, and they are a known quantity. So, when he was explaining what the project was and what role I would have, to have Alex Skarsgård daydreaming about me, I’d be a fool to say no! Then, because I had not read all those books, the source material, and did not understand how passionate the fans were about those books, I came in just like, “Oh, let’s have some fun. Oh, a wig! Hahaha.” Then, come to find out, oh, people are heavily invested in Sanctuary Moon and everything. So, I was trusting these gentlemen. I was like, “Y’all keep this train on the rail.” Because I don’t know if you’ve seen me act, but I go big. But it ended up working, and it was so much fun. I was only there for four days. But in conclusion, if your best friend asks you to be on a TV show, say yes. That actually leads me to something I was curious about. With the Sanctuary Moon stuff, you shot all of it at the same time? How did the shooting schedule work? Also, did you have all 10 scripts done, so you were able to film certain sequences from all the episodes while you had that set? Take us through the behind-the-scenes of the making of the show? CHRIS WEITZ: We did have all 10 episodes done, which I think is kind of a rarity, so we didn’t have to catch up while we were going along. We could plan to block shoot so that certain bits of the planet would all be shot in a row. But then there are also complications because you’ve got different directors coming in, like Toa Fraser. He’s the wonderful guy who directed Episode 4. Sanctuary Moon was shot on a Volume. Most of our shooting was done in actual locations, which we would amend with CG. Sanctuary Moon looks kind of CG-tastic because these video screens are providing most of the images. So, we block shot that, and it was an insane kind of logistical exercise, especially in Ontario in winter, to do that and to get in and out of different locations. PAUL WEITZ: We knew we wanted Alexander and Jack to be in a scene together, and so that sort of pushed along the idea of Murderbot while it’s having its meltdown, imagining that it’s in Sanctuary Moon.

Image via Apple TV+

So the first season is 10 episodes. Was that something that you guys came up with? Was that an Apple decision? If you get to make a second season, do you envision each season being 10 episodes, or could it change based on story? PAUL WEITZ: Good question. It was our decision in terms of the 10 episodes and in terms of it being half-hour episodes as opposed to hour-long. I don’t know. It’d be cool to keep it the same way, but I don’t know. CHRIS WEITZ: We’re very jinxy about talking about a second season because we feel like if we ever say it’s going to happen, then the streaming gods will smite us. PAUL WEITZ: There’s also this thing where it’s like, okay, if you do the thing, and it seems like people like it, then you get like one moment of, like, “Holy shit, thank goodness,” and then you’re like, “So is there going to be a next season?” You can immediately go into being like addicts. I’m going to burn Apple to the ground if there’s not a second season. I’m just throwing it out there.
‘Murderbot’ Takes Inspiration From Classic Serials and Embraces Its Cheesiness

“The show is very anti-judgmentalism.”

So, as I said earlier, every episode ends on a cliffhanger. If you don’t mind taking us backwards into the writers’ room, what was that like figuring out, “How can we make every episode end that way, that makes you want to hit play immediately?” PAUL WEITZ: The writers’ room was just… CHRIS WEITZ: A room with me and Paul in it. [Laughs] PAUL WEITZ: Until we couldn’t stand each other or something, and then we’d go write separately. CHRIS WEITZ: The cliffhangers were because we were really worried, “Are people going to want to watch anymore of this? Maybe if they don’t know what happens, they’ll wait another week.” PAUL WEITZ: For instance, Murderbot is into Sanctuary Moon and Murderbot’s the protagonist, Murderbot’s not an idiot, and Sanctuary Moon’s kind of cheesy. There’s some degree to which it’s discussing popular culture, and not in a totally scathing, critical way, as popular culture tends to examine itself. The idea of it being something that’s supposed to be fun and a little addictive was appealing. It felt that, conceptually, it wasn’t out of keeping with what the show was saying in some way. The show is very anti-judgmentalism. CHRIS WEITZ: There’s an element of Flash Gordon, of old serials, to this. Sometimes it just felt like The Perils of Pauline, as well. That’s a bit of a callback, isn’t it? Murderbot is always in another pickle by the end of the episode.
The ‘Murderbot’ Crew Shares the Most Challenging Elements of the Show

“It was upwards of 100 takes on a lot of those voiceovers.”

So, you all see the shooting schedule. What day do you have circled in terms of, “I can’t wait to film this,” and what day is circled in terms of, “How the F are we going to film this?” PAUL WEITZ: Alexander, can’t wait is like the nude scenes? SKARSGÅRD: [Laughs] Yeah. Just technically, how do we make this work? No. The Sanctuary Moon stuff was incredible because it was also so tonally different from the rest of the show. Also, playing a character who’s so restrained, it was fun to, for one day, go really big and silly. Because again, in Episode 4, when Murderbot is hallucinating that it’s on the show, it was an opportunity to do something that’s kind of uncharacteristic, and that was a lot of fun. And obviously, working with Jack and having that moment was incredibly fun. The other one was, I mean, back surgery, maybe. Spoiler alert. We ended up not shooting it. It’s not on the show. It’s great. So, it’s not a spoiler. CHRIS WEITZ: We had a weird schedule anomaly. I hate night shoots because I like sleep, and there was a moment where, if we were paying attention, we went from a day shoot into a night shoot. So, it was actually 24 hours straight because there was one episode and then another one. That I was looking at with some dread, but we got through it. PAUL WEITZ: Alexander, I just want to talk about him as a producer for a moment, because he was with us as we were coming up with the scripts, and challenging us — in a nice way. He’s a nice person. SKARSGÅRD: Physically challenging them. PAUL WEITZ: Yeah. Physically challenging us. CHRIS WEITZ: I was like, “What does that have to do with the script?” [Laughs] PAUL WEITZ: But actually, in addition to having Chris, thank goodness, having Alexander on quality control was really reassuring. The performance is so restrained. The thing that was sort of alarming was how is the voiceover going to work. Because we’ve done movies with voiceover before, like About a Boy, but you never know if it’s actually going to work in the way that you’re hoping. So, to have the character be more emotive in the voiceover and very restrained, Alexander was very much like, “Okay, we can’t let this character thaw too fast or else the tension is gone.” So, that’s not what you asked, man, but… SKARSGÅRD: I 100% agree. We also spent almost a month together working on the voiceover stuff. PAUL WEITZ: The “oh shit” was recording the voiceover for weeks after the filming. We shot in Ontario, and it was delightful slag heaps and iron ore mines and stuff. There was one time when there was a sandstorm, and I was looking around, and everyone was in masks with stuff wrapped around their faces, and I was like, “Why are they doing that? That’s cool.” And then it was super fine sand blowing through the air, sideways. That was challenging. SKARSGÅRD: To tag onto the voiceover stuff, that was quite interesting because the scripts were written a year before we started shooting it with all the voiceover, but then obviously, in that year and then on set, things change. A lot of the voiceover is obviously commenting on what’s happening on screen, but when you’re on set, stuff happens, and you come up with new ideas and stuff, so then the voiceover doesn’t necessarily match what you want, or what happens on screen. So, again, in post, we were trying to figure out the voiceover element of it.

Image via Apple TV+

Also, I hadn’t done voiceover to this extent before either, so I was also a bit, not nervous about it, but it was like, “Alright, is this going to work, and how do we figure it out?” But at the same time, it was really quite exciting. You guys came to Scandinavia, we were here, we were in New York, and spent weeks together in a studio watching it, trying the scripted version of the voiceover, and then trying rewrites. Because obviously you add a word somewhere and suddenly a non-moment becomes super funny because it’s like, “Oh, now Murderbot is commenting on what’s happening,” and then something pops or it’s too much voiceover and then you pull it back, or how sarcastic or cynical do you want to be in the voice, or how emotive do you want to be? Because again, we wanted a juxtaposition between Murderbot dry delivery in the scenes, and when the thoughts are going, it’s a bit more all over the place. But to fine-tune that, I guess after a while they pulled the plug, because we could have gone probably for weeks. PAUL WEITZ: And it was upwards of 100 takes on a lot of those voiceovers. Jack, we never got your answer in terms of what you were excited to shoot. MCBRAYER: Oh, I was only there for days. [Laughs] It was all exciting. They served lunch every day! And again, Sanctuary Moon was such a candy-colored special thing. To be honest, it was fun to see the crew responding to that new environment because y’all were just in big, old dirt piles for most of the time, respectfully. It’s 2025. We can say that. But yeah, four days, and it was all very special.
Could a ‘The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon’ Christmas Special Be In Our Future?

“It’s actually quite emotionally satisfying.”

Image via Apple TV+

People have not seen Episodes 6–10. What do you want to tease people? SKARSGÅRD: I could tell everyone what happened. [Laughs] CHRIS WEITZ: There’s going to be some fighty-fighting. It will be good. There’ll be quite a lot of action. But also, actually, we will feel we managed to pull off the ending of the book in a really fulfilling way. It’s actually quite emotionally satisfying. That’s what we really cared about in terms of the arc of the episodes. PAUL WEITZ: Yeah. It’s about how you shouldn’t reduce people. Personhood is irreducible, and that’s a theme which we really care about. And, I don’t know, fucking Alexander did beautiful work. What do you think fans are going to say once they’ve seen the season finale? No spoilers, please. CHRIS WEITZ: “All of our complaints were completely misguided.” SKARSGÅRD: And, “When are we going to get a Christmas special of The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon?” MCBRAYER: Less is more! If fans demand an episode, you never know what can happen. SKARSGÅRD: I mean, we might not get picked up, but The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon will. So next year, it’s just Jack sitting here. Were you always in the Murderbot costume at all times? Was there ever someone else? Was it a Pedro [Pascal]-Mandalorian situation? SKARSGÅRD: Mark Slaughter, we’ve been working together since Tarzan. He’s an incredible stuntman. So, all the fighting you’re watching, I’m drinking cappuccinos in my trailer when that’s happening. Then I do the fake landing, like, “Oof! Well, that was hard.”

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Every time you prepare for a role, it’s going to be different. What was it like preparing for this role? Because you’re doing stuff that I’ve never seen you do before, and you also have to play the scenes in a specific way, where Murderbot hates that he’s making these emotional connections. What was it like for you getting ready in the weeks or the months leading up to that first day of filming? SKARSGÅRD: Like I mentioned earlier, I was really excited about doing something that felt out of my wheelhouse, or at least like something I hadn’t done before. That excitement is wonderful when you go into pre-production, when you’re giddy about something, and then I just try to lean into the awkwardness of it and try to feel that. We’ve all been socially awkward, and I was just like, “Alright, well, that, but times 100.” Someone who really can’t stand eye contact. Then, I was thinking a lot about the voiceover, how that would play, or how I should play that. Because again, Murderbot is not very expressive or verbose in the scene, so how do I try to show what Murderbot is thinking in those scenes without having the voiceover on set? So, basically, running it in my head in the scenes, over and over again. So, it’s a little scary, especially in the beginning. I was like, “Is this going to be super boring?” Because I feel like I’m doing nothing. PAUL WEITZ: And by the end of it, it was really kind of lovely when you were all saying goodbye to each other. SKARSGÅRD: Yeah. And in terms of the voiceover aspect, we figured it out on the day. There were days when we would take a pause for when the voiceover would happen, and there were days when we were like, “No, let’s just skip that.” We’d play through it because it helps the rhythm of the scene, and then we’d make sure that we have enough coverage that we can cut. So, we have like a 15-second silence when the voiceover is going. But it was kind of whatever served the scene. Because sometimes, the first AD would read the voiceover off-camera so everyone would hear it, and there were days when it was like, “No, actually, today is better if the other actors don’t hear it.” I also want to say, and no one wants to hear an actor say that the other actors are great, but they’re fucking great. It was the nicest, loveliest group of humans. So from day one, it was just such an incredible camaraderie. I hope you guys feel that when you watch those guys together, how much they care about each other, because it’s real. That chemistry is real. They are in it together, and I think and hope that people feel that. You guys did such a great job with the characters and the fact that they feel fully fleshed out. They feel like they’re a family, and it’s the writing that you guys did, plus their performances. PAUL WEITZ: Thanks. CHRIS WEITZ: Thank you very much. It’s great. Martha doesn’t describe things at tremendous length, so there was room to provide backstories for some of these characters and kind of flesh them out with her cooperation. It was great. And the actors have been wonderful in bringing what they had to it as well. Murderbot Season 1 is available to stream on Apple TV+.

Murderbot

Release Date

May 15, 2025

Network

Apple TV+

Directors

Aurora Guerrero, Roseanne Liang