In Andrew Bird’s Zone 414, Matilda Lutz plays Jane, a highly advanced and self aware AI who assists Guy Pearce’s PI, David, to track down a missing girl. Shortly before the film was released, Lutz chatted with Paul Simpson…

 

How did you get involved with Zone 414?

I met the director, Andrew Bird, way before we started shooting. He told me about the project, I read the script and I really got interested because of this aspect of humans becoming more robotic and androids becoming more human. That’s what fascinated me and I also talked to Bryan [Edward Hill] the writer.

Guy Pearce was going to play David and that, to me, was a dream come true, to be able to act with such a pro.

That’s how it all started, the whole creative process, way back in LA then we continued with costumes and hair and makeup while we were in Dublin.

What did you think of Jane when you first read the script?

What Andrew told me about the project before I read the script was that he wanted the androids to be human; he didn’t want the robots to be robots or to feel like robots. There weren’t going to be effects on the voice or some kind of special effect that was going to say they’re robots.

I loved how Jane struggled to understand if she’s human because she had feelings and so part of her thinks that she’s human. She wants to be human, she strives to be human, [but] I wanted her to have a robot element so that’s why I decided to try and have both elements and never quite understand if she is a robot or if she’s human.

There’s an element of her that’s Pinocchio, of wanting to be a real girl. Did you find as you went along with hat you were allowing her to become slightly more humanised the more contact she had with Guy’s character or was it more subconscious than that?

Well, what I was trying to do was I wanted her to have a more human feel when she was with her clients or when she was with David, so with human contact she would be more human.

That was my goal, to make her more human so that you almost forget that she’s a robot but there’s a controller that can control her no matter what she wants to do. She is unique and a rebel in a way, in the city of robots.

I really wanted to give her a human feel unless she was alone.

What I was thinking more of was, is she affected more by being with David than by being with her clients?

Yes definitely. I think what clicks is that she realises that someone cares for her, and that makes her vulnerable. She’s trying to leave the city of robots. That’s her goal, she wants to leave this place that’s almost like a prison for her. When she realises that David is there for a reason but he’s also trying to protect her and cares for her, that’s what really makes her have the possibility for something better, for a future outside of the city of robots.

Are there certain things in the way he interacts with her that she picks up on and then replicates?

Well she uses David’s whole background story, his drama with his wife, to hit him, to provoke him, so yes she does use some of her android qualities that she has and can take out wherever she’s with her clients.

But I think there is a different emotion she has towards him because she understands he’s there for a reason but he’s also conflicted with helping this girl that he thinks is in danger. He starts to have feelings for her even though we saw him just kill an android right at the beginning of the film – but she starts basically tripping in her own game.

What was the biggest challenge that you faced playing her?

Playing opposite Guy Pearce (laughs)!

The biggest challenge was really long scenes, dialogue-wise. Wwe didn’t really have time to rehearse anything so that was a challenge to me because I don’t have the experience that Guy has. I was playing with a pro and it was the director’s first movie so he was also figuring things out technically so the hardest part was to just go on set and do it. Then the balance between having robotic qualities and human qualities, which is emotion.

Did you mark your script up to give an idea or remind yourself where she was in her ‘journey’? Or was it more natural than that?

I didn’t mark the script. Obviously we’re not shooting in sequence, nobody does anymore, so I was going through where she was coming from and where she was going every time that we would do a new scene – or I tried to.

What do you think the best moment for her in the movie is or the best moment for you in it?

I will say there’s different good feelings in different scenes.

For example with Jonathan Aris it was really fun to explore being frozen [when Jane is effectively switched off]. When we talk about sexual harassment and that kind of stuff, that to me was a replica of girls that in a situation of danger and harassment just freeze. It was bringing that quality. In an android, they use a controller but it’s kind of the same because they use a way of manipulating and surprising the victim and that’s what it gives you, in certain situations.

That was fun to explore and to have the [situation] where she [finds she] can move because she reacts to that and then to get that power out was really fun.

The first scene that we shot was one of the last scenes of the film where I’m basically provoking David about his ex wife. That was really interesting because Guy and I didn’t really know each other so that was fun in a different way.

But equally with that by doing it then you’ve got it that it is very much you as Jane reacting to Guy as David rather than any hint of Matilda and Guy.
What do you think you’ve brought away from the experience overall?

It’s very scary to me because when I started researching about androids and robots – that’s how I start, very general before I go into the specific – I started realising, and I had no idea, there’s influencers on Instagram and Facebook that are actually androids. They’re not real people but they have real agents, they have a real account, they make real money. They look real.

That’s what I tried to bring to Jane. They have this quality that’s like, ’Are they human or are they robots?’ You don’t know.

But that exists already and to me that’s really scary. I caught myself opening my eyes when I wake up and [going straight] on my phone. That’s the first thing we do sometimes – some people do it more, some people do it less – and that scares me.

I think that’s what drew me to the project because I think we should look at the movie and be like ‘Wow, we don’t want to go there’.

Zone 414 is available on digital download now