EXCLUSIVE: Joanna Sotomura On Bringing “Sunny” To Life, Working With Rashida Jones, And The Ethics Of AI

Joanna Sotomura, 37, is an American actress best known for her roles in Emma Approved, Madison County, and Everything Before Us, as well as guest-starring roles in Barry, The Good Place, and Crazy Ex-Girlfirend. In her latest role, she stars alongside Rashida Jones and Hidetoshi Nishijima in Katie Robbins' new currently running series Sunny, produced for Apple TV+ by A24. Sotomura takes on the title role as the chummy futuristic homebot Sunny, who helps Suzie (Rashida Jones) overcome her grief after losing her family in a tragic plane crash. The show is a must-watch for fans of mystery, sci-fi, dark comedy, and thrillers – I highly recommend it. Kyoto, Japan, is a character in its own right.

When Sotomura first received the script, Sunny was characterized as a "well-meaning Girl Scout gone wrong" – an ominous description that captured her curiosity. Though she had zero clue how they'd bring this concept to life, she knew she needed to be a part of it. The process of physically realizing Sunny on screen as a three-foot tall, sleek white robot with kawaii eyes was a considerable effort involving over 100 prototypes before settling on a version visually reminiscent of Baymax from Big Hero 6 and Eve from WALL-E.

Speaking with Sotomura over Zoom on an early Saturday morning, I was eager to hear her behind-the-scenes anecdotes and for her to expand on what it was like to get in touch with her Japanese ancestry. Given her personal history, the role of Sunny felt particularly meaningful, allowing her to reclaim a part of her heritage. Sotomura's grandparents met at the Amache internment camp in Colorado, where thousands of Japanese people were forcibly relocated and effectively imprisoned after the attack on Pearl Harbor during World War II. This experience led to her father's avoidance of speaking Japanese – something that was discouraged by her grandfather.

It's befitting that Sotomura, who grew up in Honolulu enjoying the Japanese-Hawaiian fusion between the two cultures, got the opportunity to reclaim her heritage through this project. She moved to Japan for six months to film on location and worked closely with a Japanese dialect coach to expand her vocabulary.

After fumbling around for several minutes with the audio input on my Macbook, anxious not to waste Sotomura's precious time, I was met only with accommodating patience, understanding, and a great sense of humor. She had a bright sweetness to her, resembling the conviviality of her character, Sunny. Poetically, she exudes the same amiable optimism. We touch on how motherhood has changed her perspective on the series, her philosophy on technological advancement, and what it was like to work with acting icons like Rashida Jones.

Jaimee Marshall: I really enjoyed the show. It's so rich with these deep themes of loneliness, grief, and artificial intelligence, but it also has these really complicated relationships, and I was just wondering what drew you to the series. Was it the dystopian future vibes, or was it more the characters?

Joanna Sotomura: For me, it was the characters because that's the first thing that I read for the audition. I didn't really have any scripts to go off of. I just had the breakdown of Sunny, and I read it and was like, Oh my god. I absolutely have to play this character. I know how to do it. Please let me try. So, through the auditions, I got more scripts and as I read them, I was falling in love with the world and with Suzie and the storyline and the mystery of it all. So, at first, it was definitely the Sunny character, and then it was just the entire world that Katie Robbins, our showrunner, created.

JM: What attracted you to Sunny? Did you see some elements of your own personality inside Sunny?

JS: Oh, yeah. I saw a lot of myself in her. I thought it was just so cool and interesting how they were going to bring her to life. I didn't really know when I was first auditioning for it so I was very curious about that. But I loved her personality and I loved the comedic moments that she had with Suzie. Those made me really laugh out loud. And I also related to a lot of her sadness and brokenness that happens, without spoilers, throughout the season. So, yeah, all aspects of her really resonated with me.

JM: You grew up in Hawaii, and you come from a Japanese-American background. What did it mean to you to sign on to a show that authentically explores Japanese culture and go to Japan and embark on that whole journey? 

JS: It meant everything to me because I'm half Japanese, but I had never been to Japan before. I grew up with the food and the language and the culture, with its own Hawaiian twist on it, being from Hawaii. When I got the role and found out I was going to live, not just work, in Japan, but live there for six months, it was really mind-blowing. We shot in 2022 before the borders were really opened up to tourists, so you had to have a work visa to be there. We saw streets of Kyoto that were pretty empty and temples and restaurants and just all sorts of Japanese life, but without the crowds. It was such a unique way to experience Japan for the first time. And I kept seeing versions of my grandma and grandpa all over Japan. So it was so magical. It was really, really special.

JM: That sounds amazing. I know you probably get asked this a lot, but what's it like to work with Rashida Jones? More specifically, what was it like to see her take on this grittier role and to be such an integral part of that? Because your relationship dynamic and the way it evolves is so beautiful and funny and heartwarming, and sometimes a little sinister and ominous. So what was that like? 

JS: Working with Rashida Jones was fantastic. She's everything that you would think she'd be. She's smart and she's funny and she's dynamic, and she was just a great leader on set, and she was so, so generous too, with just her everything, her energy, her performance. So, that was really great to be able to work side by side with her on that. And then to watch her take on this role, which is really tough because it's this woman who starts off at the lowest of lows. She's broken and she's devastated and she just doesn't want to be here anymore. And then to act that line while having moments of just levity and dark comedy with Sunny, it was really cool to watch her do. And so to be able to be a part of that in those scenes was fantastic. Yeah, it was really fun.

JM: I know that you used this specialized technology, this kind of convoluted process of capturing Sunny. Can you explain what that process was like and all the different things that went into that?

JS: Totally, yeah. So, we actually did have a real three-foot-tall robot Sunny on set, so none of her is CGI. That's all practical effects. And so what would happen was I would go and I would do the scene as Joanna, and they would put a little piece of tape where Sunny's eye line would be, which was usually my belly button. And I would walk around and do the things as I would with my hands or my head or my voice, and then they would roll the robot Sunny on. I would go slightly off camera with this rig that had a ring light and a monitor so I could see what Sunny was seeing and a camera that would capture my facial expressions and a little microphone for my voice. When I would move my head this way, she would move this way, and when I would blink, she would blink. And then we had two puppeteers, one mimicking my motion and the other one mimicking my hands. So, the three of us together made the Sunny that you see. And it came with its own unique set of challenges when you work with that kind of tech for the first time, also in the Kyoto heat, which was (sarcastically) so much fun. The one thing that I didn't think about, but I had to learn, was to act without blinking for a lot of scenes. 

JM: Oh wow, that would be difficult. 

JS: It was (giggles), it was. I got used to it towards the end, but in the beginning, I was like "eugh," because her eyes are so big that if you were to blink normally, like you and I talking, it was just like ba-ding-bing, like Morse code. So I had to learn to time out her blinks, but I could use that too to emote with her more, so I ended up using something that was really challenging as something that was another fun, Sunny character aspect.

JM: That's so interesting. Is it surreal to see the final product knowing all the things that went into it? When you finally wrap the show and you watch it back, do you feel a little sense of detachment from it, or what does it feel like to see the full package? 

JS: I finally am detached from it now, having watched it maybe like five times. The first two times, I was just too close. I remembered where I was when we filmed that scene. I was like, oh, that's right, that's when they built me into the wall, or I'm under the floor here in this one, or that's the day that I sweated through all of my clothing. But now, when we rewatched the first two episodes, my husband said it was the first time he hadn't seen me speak in a long time. I was just silent for two episodes. And now when I watch it, I can appreciate it for the show that it is, and I'm so proud of the thing that we created all those years ago. So now I can finally just sit back and enjoy. 

JM: I love that. Sunny's temperament and the way that she sees the world reminds me of kind of like a child – that childlike wonder, optimism, and whimsy we tend to lose as we get older. You seem like a quite naturally optimistic person as it is, but do you find that seeing the world through the eyes of a child gives you a sense of rebirth? I know that you recently became a mother (congratulations!), so do you interpret the show any differently now that you've become a mother? 

JS: Oh my gosh, yeah. When I first read the script and we did the first few scenes with Suzie's character who's just so beyond devastated, I was like, Wow. That's really sad. I can imagine what that would be like. And now I'm like, I don't want to ever imagine what that would be like, having a child now. I relate to Suzie so much more than I thought I ever could. But, yeah, it's a really interesting place where I still feel very Sunny, but I relate a lot to Suzie.

JM: How did you approach capturing the humor in the script? Because especially in Sunny's dialogue, there are things that are just so subtly funny, and I would think it would be difficult to capture properly, especially from a voice-acting perspective. How did you translate that humor that was on the page onto the screen, especially as you're not directly acting with your face, at least in the way that we see it? 

JS: Well, thank you! I'm glad you like the humor in it. That's also one of the things that I was like, this is so funny. I love that sort of uncomfortable dark humor; that's right up my alley. But that's all the writers. None of the script is improv. It's all what's on the page, and that's just a testament to this crazy world that Kate Robbins created and the rest of the writing team. Every little subtle joke is on the page. It was one of the best scripts I had ever read and made me laugh out loud. So yeah, that's just all the writers, and I just really tried to not screw it up.

JM: Your voice lent so much emotion and life to Sunny. It was one of the highlights for me. I can't imagine a different voice being Sunny. I was suspicious of Sunny at first, but she really grew on me. Do you have a process for finding the right intonation and pitch for a role like this, or even just in terms of voice acting, the process of protecting your voice? I've always wondered that. 

JS: Me too (laughs). I do wonder because sometimes I push myself too hard and I'm like, how do people do video games where they have to constantly scream? But in terms of finding her pitch, I was really lucky that I got to play around a lot, and during the audition process, I found something that I felt comfortable with. I thought she would be, based on her description, really kind of high and bright and excited. And then they let me sort of drop my register a little bit too, in certain scenes where it required it. And at first, I was thinking it won't be consistent with the whole thing. But then they reassured me, our producers and our showrunner, that that's kind of Sunny, though. She's evolving, and she's learning, and she's not going to stay in one place, whether it be her emotions or the way that she communicates with Suzie or her vocal tones. So, I kind of found it right out the jump, and then they let me grow from there. But yeah, I really need to figure out how to protect my voice better.

JM: Well, whatever you did definitely worked perfectly. 

JS: Thank you.

JM: I think there's a tendency when actors sign onto a show like this to kind of get them to interpret the philosophical complex themes that the director or show creator is trying to unpack. Do you concern yourself with that or do you just concern yourself with your job of translating what's on the page in the script onto the screen in terms of your specific character? Are you interested in figuring out what the show is saying? 

JS: The way that my process is, I just do what's on the page, and I do what's in that scene to the best of my ability, and I don't try to look any further into that because then I feel like it would add too many layers to it. I think the honest and most simplistic route is usually the best. So much so that watching these episodes, I was like, Oh! That's what's happening! Even having read the scripts, being in the scene, shooting it multiple times, seeing it all come together, I was like, Okay. I get it now. So I'm very much, like, do what you need to do on the day, let it go, and then move on to the next day. But that's just my process. 

JM: I'm sure that things come together in the final package, which makes it much clearer than just reading the script. 

JS: Oh yeah, yeah.

JM: Just from your personal opinion, are you excited or more wary of the direction we're heading, societally, technologically in terms of developing things like AI? 

JS: I am very much on both sides. I see the great benefit that AI has in streamlining our lives, connecting us, helping us. For me, I have a smart bassinet that knows when my baby is crying. So little things like that, I'm like, Wow, that's really, really helpful. And then there are things that are really scary, like how it's a major threat to people in our industry as performers and creators. So I don't know where we'll go from here, but I'm both excited for the benefits and very wary of how it can be misused. 

JM: Do you think, personally, someone could have a meaningful relationship with a robot in the way that Suzie does?

JS: Rashida touched on this a little bit in some of her interviews, but it's hard not to when something is presented in a very sweet package like that. It's hard not to give it real human emotions and then create a real human-like friendship. I mean, when I see those little robots on the streets in LA with those eyes that deliver food, do you know those ones?

JM: Oh, yeah!

JS: Yeah, If you see them, they're scared to go over a little curb or something, and it's hard for me not to be like ohh buddy. And then I'm like, wait, no, it's a little race car that's driven by someone delivering food. It's fine. But, yeah, it's hard not to empathize with anything that is cute and has big eyes. 

JM: Right, which Sunny definitely is. 

JS: If you could choose any piece of futuristic technology to enhance your life, whether it exists now or not, what would it be? 

JS: Ooh, if I could just make something up?

JM: Yeah! Let your dreams be.

JS: You know, honestly, a homebot. I was telling my husband the other day, as we were watching the latest episode. I was like, That would be just so nice. Someone sweet to come in and do all of the house chores so I could go to Target (giggles). Anything that will help with menial tasks, I think, would be fantastic, and also the real-time translators are pretty cool.

You can catch Joanna in Sunny, now streaming on Apple TV+. Read my full first-season review here, and don't miss the seventh episode airing on August 14.