{"id":99937,"date":"2017-11-01T14:08:18","date_gmt":"2017-11-01T14:08:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/?p=99937"},"modified":"2017-11-01T14:10:20","modified_gmt":"2017-11-01T14:10:20","slug":"ruth-bradley-talks-electric-dreams-humans-grabbers-and-why-ripley-is-always-with-her","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/interviews\/ruth-bradley-talks-electric-dreams-humans-grabbers-and-why-ripley-is-always-with-her\/","title":{"rendered":"Ruth Bradley talks Electric Dreams, Humans, Grabbers and why Ripley is always with her"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you’re a genre fan, you’re going to recognise Ruth Bradley. Over the last few years she’s\u00a0delivered superb performances in\u00a0some of our favourite\u00a0SF TV series and movies, starring as mysterious synth Karen in Channel 4’s brilliant Humans,\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>woman out of time Emily Merchant in Primeval<\/em><\/strong>,\u00a0and straight-laced Garda turned boozed-up alien-battler Lisa Nolan in cult favourite Grabbers\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>(she was also ace in The Fall<\/em><\/strong>, but that’s out of our genre remit, sadly…). Now she’s a part of epic anthology TV series Philip K Dick’s Electric Dreams<\/em><\/strong>, starring alongside Bryan Cranston, Essie Davis and Liam Cunningham in the episode ‘Human Is’.<\/p>\n

We talked to Bradley about her work on the show, what makes Philip K Dick so special, exploring the heart of an android in Humans<\/em><\/strong>, and the brilliance of Sigourney Weaver.<\/p>\n

What can you tell us about your episode and your character in Electric Dreams<\/em>?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It’s\u00a0centred around a relationship between two characters, Silas and Vera who are Bryan Cranston and Essie Davis, and it\u2019s kind of an emotional story about human nature and relationships. He comes back quite changed and then it\u2019s just about what it is to be human.<\/p>\n

I play a character called Yaro.\u00a0She\u2019s Vera\u2019s right-hand woman and she works pretty high up in the state. It\u2019s set in the future, the whole thing is you figure out what these characters are about as you watch it. She was originally written as a man and that was really nice for me because I guess so often as an actress you\u2019re somebody\u2019s girlfriend or wife, so it was really nice to be like “This is just like real life where women have a story of their own regardless of what their gender is!”<\/p>\n

Were you familiar with Philip K Dick’s work beforehand?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah, I had read The Man In The High Castle<\/em> <\/strong>but I wasn\u2019t familiar with the short stories at all, and what\u2019s great about these short stories, and the whole series, is some of them are like six pages long but there\u2019s so much other story to mine. He just had an endless wealth of stories to tell inside him and you could go any direction with them, which I think is what\u2019s really cool about the show. Because if you are familiar with the short stories, which I am now, you wouldn\u2019t expect where they\u2019ve gone and so far, the ones that have aired, it\u2019s just like you could keep making them and making them and making them. Such a mind he has.<\/p>\n

And so prolific! They\u2019re weirdly inspirational and you could make anything out of them, wherever your imagination takes you. They\u2019re not locked in which I think is why they\u2019re still so successful now.<\/p>\n

So much of his work hasn’t dated at all…<\/strong><\/p>\n

Completely, yeah, and I think that\u2019s his genius too. Even the ones that do feel like they are removed or fantastical, they all are still rooted in humanity and there\u2019s always such a human thread going through. Which is probably why they\u2019re still relevant.<\/p>\n

Did you have any idea what was going on with the other episodes?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Not a clue. I went and met the director and casting director and it was like meeting for a film because essentially they\u2019re like 10 separate feature films. I knew they were making 10 but all I knew was our story and our cast and then when we went to shoot it, ours was the last one that they shot. So the crew had been working on it for the whole thing and that was the first time I heard about any of the other films. I was completely unaware of what was going on. And now only as a viewer when I\u2019m watching it I see how completely different they all are. Which is brilliant.<\/p>\n

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Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams Episode 106 “Human Is”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

You’ve worked with director Francesca Gregorini before, how was it teaming up with her again?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah! I worked with her on the second series of Humans<\/em><\/strong> which is lovely, I really like working with her as a director. She\u2019s got a really great vibe on set, she knows what she wants and she\u2019s got a really calm, cool way of expressing it. We had a nice shorthand this year which is really lovely, to work with someone you enjoy working with.<\/p>\n

The sci-fi you’ve done before, like Humans<\/em>, has been set a lot closer to our present. How was it working on something with a more obviously “sci-fi” setting?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, I guess you kind of approach it the same way whether it\u2019s sci-fi or drama or comedy, for me anyway, I just like to base it in truth and reality and play the honesty of it. So even if you\u2019re playing, for example, a robot in Humans<\/em><\/strong> you still approach it from a real place. I think as long as you do that, they are grounded and they are real to you when you get there, you don\u2019t have many questions. You don\u2019t think “This much more fantastical” or “This is much more sci-fi than what I\u2019m used to”, you just go “Well, I do this in this completely futuristic world” and it becomes your reality.<\/p>\n

Essie Davis is so brilliant, what was it like working with her?<\/strong><\/p>\n

She is, yeah. She\u2019s so much fun. I thought she was amazing too, I\u2019m a big fan of hers but she\u2019s really great craic as well! That was lovely, and so was Bryan [Cranston] and Liam [Cunningham],\u00a0who I\u2019ve known from before, it was one of the most fun jobs I\u2019ve ever done. Lots of fun and laughter, and I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s something about working with actors who are pretty established or have been around or are really great, but there were no egos on the set.<\/p>\n

Everybody was just there to make the best of the work and to have fun while they were doing it and to explore and be free in it which I think always produces the best stuff. I think when you have a tight grasp on something it can lose stuff which just comes out of play, I suppose, so I really loved working with Bryan and Essie and Liam because everybody shares that sense of play. It so didn\u2019t feel like ever too heavy…which it, is in fact!<\/p>\n

And Bryan Cranston is one of the producers on the show…<\/strong><\/p>\n

Actually, he\u2019s such a warm and open creative artist I kind of forgot sometimes he was a producer. One day he wasn\u2019t shooting and he was sitting one of the monitor chairs and I wondered “What\u2019s he doing? Oh god he\u2019s producing the whole show!” So, I think the fact that he\u2019s so open and such fun and such an actor in that sense in that he\u2019s so involved with the play of it all, I never felt like he had his producer\u2019s hat on and then he\u2019s acting, he\u2019s just such a consummate professional. And within that he\u2019s really able to have fun which for me is such an important part of our job so that our emotions are liquid and fluid. Nothing is too tightly wound, and he\u2019s an example of how that works so well.<\/p>\n

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Bradley with Neil Maskell in Humans<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Moving on to Humans<\/em>, we really got to know your character in Series Two. What was it like getting to explore Nina in greater depth?<\/strong><\/p>\n

For me,\u00a0because I had created a whole inner world in the first series, I felt like all of those decisions had been made and all those things were quite set for me, even though we didn\u2019t even shoot them.\u00a0In the first series I knew from the get-go what she really was, so it felt like by the time we got to the second series we were just letting the audience in on who she is and what she is, but essentially her quest remained the same from the first and second series. She wants to fit in and seem human.<\/p>\n

She just took it too far in the second series and ended up losing the most important thing to her, which she didn\u2019t realise until it was gone. But it was really interesting to explore that idea of: if you create something man-made and you try and create something which is so close to what it is to be human, you can\u2019t control it, you don\u2019t know what consciousness is, none of us can quantify what it is.<\/p>\n

So, the fact that she cries in the second series was really interesting to me because if you put something together you can\u2019t control how it\u2019s going to be so that was something that obviously came about because of the depth of the emotion she felt, so that was really interesting to play with. The writers gave me such a gift there because that was something we talked about in the first series. But I suppose the nature of greed that she wanted everything, love, and a lovely life, and she was going, “I want this and I want this”, and I\u2019m going, “Oh god you had it all and now it\u2019s gone”, which is so human for all of us.<\/p>\n

Do you know anything about what’s coming up in Series Three?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well I know about it because we\u2019re doing it but that\u2019s all I can say! God, I\u2019m a terrible interviewee, I can\u2019t say anything! [maniacal laugh] But it\u2019s good, very exciting.<\/p>\n

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Investigating a probably-dead alien lifeform in Grabbers<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We’re also huge fans of Grabbers<\/em>, where you got to play some pretty brilliant comedy as a Garda who has to get drunk to fight alien monsters!<\/strong><\/p>\n

That\u00a0much fun, that was some of the most fun I\u2019ve ever had on a job. That character was a dream because she was so straight-laced at the beginning and obviously it\u2019s her first time getting drunk and she happens to be an adult, so wondering what kind of a drunk you are when you get drunk and how it would affect you trying to save everybody\u2019s life and how everything seems funny when it shouldn\u2019t. Your reactions would be so wrong, so inappropriate.<\/p>\n

And then we had such fun because the director said, \u201cI have this crazy idea, I don\u2019t know how you feel about it, but I\u2019d like all of us to go out before shooting, get drunk and let me film you.\u201d And we were like, “Let\u2019s just do it.” That was the funnest experiment ever, I mean it\u2019s horrendous, but then when you watch the video, there are so many physical tells that people do when they\u2019re drunk. So that was really interesting to see all these things that you do and then incorporate this idea that you flirt inappropriately and that\u2019s what you might do when you first have a few drinks, you\u2019re far more tactile. So much fun to play with and create that character.<\/p>\n

It’s developed this cult audience too, you always see people talking about it on Twitter…<\/strong><\/p>\n

I know! I\u2019ve heard there\u2019s a drinking game too which is absolutely hilarious! Every time someone says the word grabber you take a drink, that\u2019s only a few times, maybe you drink on other words too! Maybe you drink whenever they drink, that would get you pretty drunk. Totally! But great fun! Again, that\u2019s the thing with sci-fi, there\u2019s so many different genres, genres within genres, comedy sci-fi, horror sci-fi, drama sci-fi\u2026.<\/p>\n

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Bradley starred in anthology horror film Holidays<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And you’ve done some horror with anthology movie Holidays<\/em>. Your segment ‘St Patrick’s Day’ is pretty mad, playing a woman who’s pregnant with a monster…<\/strong><\/p>\n

Completely mad film! [laughs] So much fun though. That was random and out of the blue. [Director] Gary Shore, we would have grown up around the same area, and he was like, “I\u2019ve got this film would you like to do it?”\u00a0And it was such a quick shoot. I read it and I was like, “I\u2019m fascinated by this but I have absolutely no idea what it\u2019s about, what the story is…”\u00a0But he\u2019s quite an auteur and he was like, “Let\u2019s just do it!” and he made quite a black comedy. Because when I read it I was like, “Is this a drama?” There was a lot of improvisation and a lot of letting go, going with the flow, a lot of takes that went on and on. But so much fun, an absolutely mad little film! A crazy dark comedy fable.<\/p>\n

Do you ever think about genre when you’re thinking about taking a role?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s never genre, it\u2019s always character and story. Number one: story, because if you\u2019re reading something and you can\u2019t put it down that\u2019s a really good sign, or if you have to put it down to do something and you\u2019re like “Oh god, I can\u2019t wait to find out what happens next!” like a good book, that\u2019s a really good sign. And then character, the character need to be something interesting and something challenging. You can\u2019t really fake\u00a0the\u00a0reaction that you have to a script or a character, you can\u2019t manifest it if it\u2019s not there, so that gut feeling is what I look for and generally that ends up being what you work on because there\u2019s a two-way thing happening. And I suppose with sci-fi there\u2019s so many great female roles.<\/p>\n

Is there a genre that you haven’t done that you’d like to try?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I suppose I\u2019ve never really done action. I don\u2019t know how interested I\u2019d be, I think if it was a great character I\u2019d try anything but I definitely don\u2019t really read for a lot of action films. But I have no great desire, I\u2019ve never woken up and gone “Jesus, I\u2019d love to be in an action film!” But listen, if one came along I\u2019d do it! But I\u2019m really happy with what I\u2019m doing at the moment. I\u2019d be happy doing a bit more comedy, actually, probably could do with a bit more of that these days.<\/p>\n

Do you find that people mostly recognise you for Humans<\/em>?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Actually, I never get recognised, ever. No, never. It\u2019s because I have a pretty thick Dublin accent and my hair is long dark blonde and I\u2019m always wearing wigs. I have no idea. Somebody said to me the other day that they watched Humans<\/em><\/strong> and I was like, “Oh yeah, I\u2019m in that” and they were like “Oh, are you? You\u2019re so smiley in real life, you\u2019re not like a robot at all!”\u00a0“Oh yeah, it\u2019s my job.” [laughs] Robots don\u2019t really go around laughing and pulling faces, so no I never really get recognised for that.<\/p>\n

You were announced as being part of British horror anthology Its Walls Were Blood<\/em> a couple of years ago, has there been any news about that happening?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah…it’s\u00a0like so many of these things, you\u2019re waiting for them to get funding together and hopefully do it down the line.<\/p>\n

So what are you working on next?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Right now, I\u2019m doing Humans<\/em><\/strong> but I just finished a really cool film called Three Seconds<\/em><\/strong> that\u2019s based on a Swedish book set in New York and it\u2019s basically about the NYPD and FBI. It\u2019s a great cast, this really cool director Andrea Di Stefano directed it, it\u2019s got Rosamund Pike in it and Clive Owen and Joel Kinnaman and Common. So yeah, that was really different again.\u00a0I’m playing\u00a0a Brooklyn woman, I won\u2019t get recognised for that either.<\/p>\n

Finally, was there a sci-fi movie that you remember loving as a kid?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Definitely Alien<\/em><\/strong> was one, and Terminator,<\/em><\/strong> probably because they had two women as the focal point. I hadn\u2019t quite realised that but in hindsight it might be that, which wasn\u2019t that common in other genres when I was a kid, I suppose.\u00a0I was really blown away by them, particularly Sigourney Weaver. Ripley is always there somewhere in my heart.<\/p>\n

Philip K Dick’s Electric Dreams is currently airing on Channel 4 and you can watch ‘Human Is’ on All4.\u00a0<\/strong>
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