Actress Joanna Sotomura in a motion-capture helmet and light blue top, smiles with other people in face masks in the background.

Joanna Sotomura is in a ‘Sunny’ mood

How playing Apple TV+'s favorite new maybe-murderbot connected a Japanese American actress to Japan

Joanna Sotomura voices Sunny the robot in "Sunny."

Courtesy of Apple TV+

Words by Caroline Cao

In our Zoom interview, Joanna Sotomura folds her mouth into a cartoonish puppy-dog pout, demonstrating the motion capture art of exaggerated expressions.

After all, Sotomura’s mo-cap and vocal performance power the robotic heart of the Kyoto-set Sunny, a highly anticipated sci-fi dark dramedy with a breeze of bonkerness. The show follows an American expat, the sullen Suzie (Rashida Jones), bereaved by the loss of her husband Masa (Hidetoshi Nishijima from Shin Ultraman and Drive My Car) and their son. To her bafflement, her late husband’s associate delivers her Masa’s top-secret project: the eponymous bubbly home domestic bot. Although Sunny herself may glow with a kid-friendly cartoony visage and helpful intentions like Baymax from Big Hero 6, Sunny might also be a malfunctioning murderbot. It’s a little unclear for now. And yet, the botand her bizarre budding emotional sentiencemight contain the clue to unlocking the mystery of Suzie’s missing family. 

Bringing in her motion-capture experience from the Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare video game, Sotomura was sequestered on various hidden spots on the film shoots and recorded her Sunny lines wearing a helmet that captured her expressions. I interviewed Sotomura about bringing the cheerful maybe-murderbot to life and how the production connected her to her Japanese roots.

This interview was edited for clarity and length.

Caroline Cao: How was life growing up in Hawaii? Did you ever dream of acting as a kid?
Joanna Sotomura: My mother's German and my dad’s Japanese, third generation. I grew up in Honolulu, Hawaii. It's such a wonderful place to have a childhood, and I’m very much like an indoor kid. So I spent a lot of time going to see movies at the mall or Diamond Head Theatre. Because it's such an outdoor state, it felt kind of isolating at times [for an indoor kid], until I was in seventh grade and my dad suggested that I try out for a school play because people have to be your friends within the three months that you're rehearsing for. It was a Shakespeare play. And I fell in love with theater and did the Hawaii Shakespeare Festival for two summers, and then was like, “That's it. I’m hooked. I have to pursue this.” And I went to college at Loyola Marymount, and had a professor that was like, “Actually, instead of theater, have you thought about film and television?” So I decided to pursue that and was like, “Oh, being on set is incredible.” What a whole new experience too. What a whole other layer to acting. And I have just had the fortune of working an audition thing to the point where I’m here now talking with you.

CC: Did you ever dream of playing or voicing a robot?
JS: You know what? Not until I read the script and I saw this character. I love Sunny so much. I love her story arc. I love her personality. I had no idea at the time how they were going to make this robot happen, but I wanted to be a part of it. So eventually, yeah, I did have that dream of being a robot. Initially, on the audition, I believe the call sheet said a new line of robots that's like a “well-meaning Girl Scout gone wrong.” I was like, “What? Yeah, Sign me up.” And then when I got to Tokyo and I actually met her, the robot, I was like, "Wow, this is going to be a whole different experience than I even could prepare for."

CC: I see Sunny as a fusion of Big Hero 6 and the manga/anime Pluto. Both have themes exploring how far robots go to realize their humanity, sometimes committing at least one murder. Did you model Sunny’s performance after any other fictional robot?
JS: I just had the real pleasure of doing service to showrunner Katie Robbins’ scripts. They were so wonderful, and she had such a fully realized vision of this robot and this near futuristic Kyoto that all I really had to do was do service to those scripts. I was just very fortunate to come in at the very end and then give her a little bit of life.

A white robot with a round head and big eyes stands in a room with a dining table and kitchen in the background in "Sunny."

The robot Sunny, voiced by Joanna Sotomura, in "Sunny."

Courtesy of Apple TV+

CC: When you see Sunny onscreen, is it like seeing yourself?
JS: Yeah, it's very weird. I've had the honor of watching the show a few times, and the first few times, all I could see was myself, like any other active performance. I was like, “Oooh,” but now I have much kinder eyes, and I’m watching it more as an audience than as an actor, and it's been so much fun. And the other thing that's pretty funny watching these shows is I remember where I was on set that day, because I had the helmet and the monitor and the camera, so I was very close to where the robot was. So there are times I was like, “Oh yeah, I’m hiding in that closet.” Or they tucked me in a wall, they built a wall around me, or I’m underneath the floor in this scene. 

CC: Slight spoiler territory: Do you have a connection to Japanese game shows? This factors in a major way in the plot.
JS: I do now! I knew of the Japanese game shows and their energy and chaos. They made an American version [of one Japanese game show], Silent Library, and they had everyone sit around and spin a wheel and do something funny, and then the first one that laughs gets slapped. But that's about my extent of game show knowledge prior to the show.

CC: Where were you hidden [for that particular scene]?
JS: Underneath the floor! If you're watching the show to the left of the screen, underneath the floorboards is where I’m actually in a little tent, just bawling my eyes out as the robot who's directly above me. It was my favorite episode to film because of all the emotional range that Sunny gets to play with.

Two white robots with round heads, one with the back open, exposing cords, while a man in a mask stands close to the other robot.

Behind the scenes of "Sunny."

Courtesy of Apple TV+

CC: How many gallons of tears did you pour out playing Sunny?
JS: Oh, multiple gallons. So many gallons. I had to just get a bucket at one point. So actually, that scene is my last audition [script] that I had to book the role of Sunny. I had all these other scenes beforehand that were bubbly and bright. And then six weeks into auditioning, so tired, they're like, “We have one more audition.” And I just read the script. I didn't read the whole episode, and I was like, “What in the hell is this? Because it's so bonkers.” But I still was like, “Okay, there's a new through line of heart and humanity and like, sadness in this Sunny that I've never seen before. Let's just go for it.” And then, luckily, they liked what I brought.

CC: Talk about your relationship to your Japanese American identity and your career.
JS: I would audition for any Asian American role. [For this role,] it was really hard to book because it was all encompassingChinese, American, Japanese, Korean. It wasn't just focused on one sort of group. Sunny is a robot; she's not really anything other than that. But to be able to film in Japan, where my great grandparents are from, to learn the language and eat the food that I was raised with, and see [the spirit of] my grandma and grandpa everywhere was something special. I’m so proud to be Japanese, and I’m so proud to be Asian.

CC: So the shoot was the first time you've been to Japan or engaged directly in Japanese culture.
JS: Yeah, aside from the Japanese American culture that I know and the Asian-fusion culture that we have in Hawaii. But Japan was always on a bucket list of mine. And so we also went there in 2022 when Japan wasn't open to tourists. You had to have a work permit to get there. So I got to see Japan in a way that I don't know that we'll ever see again with, like, empty streets in Kyoto, and some of the typically high traffic tourist places, were just quiet. So it was a really unique way to experience Japan for the first time.

Actresses annie the clumsy and Rashida Jones, and a white robot stand together in front of a stand with Japanese items in the background.

From left, annie the clumsy, Sunny (voiced by Joanna Sotomura) and Rashida Jones in "Sunny."

Courtesy of Apple TV+

CC: Did you see any other memorable sites in Japan?
JS: One of the coolest things was being able to work in Toho Studios where they do all of the Godzilla. There's a big Mothra mural and a seven-foot tall Godzilla outside. In between takes, I just walked around that studio. I bought all of the merch.

CC: I'm guessing you’d love to bring your daughter to that place one day. Are you bringing all that Godzilla merch to her?
JS: [Squeals] Yeah, I can make her a little tiny kaiju costume. It would be a dream. I’m so proud that she's one quarter Japanese. I can't wait to one day take her back there and show her culture too, and especially when she starts to be able to eat [solid] foods and really understand these experiences. The new bucket list is now taking her back to Japan.

CC: It’s an ironic thing to mention, but let’s talk AI and voice acting. I know voice actors who express concerns about generative AI taking the place of human voice actors. Do you have an opinion on the matter?
JS: Absolutely. I think it's a very legitimate concern. I think that AI poses a lot of help. There's a lot of good that it can do, and yeah, there's a lot of threat for certain things, especially for performance art careers. So I have the same concerns as well. Maybe I’m wildly optimistic, but I really don't think there's any way to recreate this human emotion, spontaneity, this connection that we're (in this interview) even forming right now tooand this sort of free flow while you’re being human, creative, and emoting. So I think we're probably ways off from that, but I do think it's definitely a scary thing. It's something to keep the conversation going.

The ongoing first season of Sunny is streaming on Apple TV+.

A robot with round head and big eyes stands in a room, in the dark, surrounded by people in face masks.

Sunny is the title robot in the show "Sunny."

Courtesy of Apple TV+

Published on July 24, 2024

Words by Caroline Cao

Caroline Cao is an NYC-based writer. A queer Vietnamese American woman, she also won’t shut up about animation and theatre. She likes ramen, pasta, and fanfic writing. Follow her on Instagram and Twitter @Maximinalist.