‘I’m such a huge sci-fi nerd’: Murderbot stars reveal what attracted them to the unusual Apple TV+ show
The upcoming Apple TV+ sci-fi comedy series Murderbot is powering up on May 16, 2025 and excitement is already building over its 10-episode first season that centers around a self-hacking security robot in the future that dislikes people’s pheromones and their insipid emotions, but loves bingeing melodramatic soap opera feeds like The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon.
Led by Alexander Skarsgård (True Blood, The Northman) as the snarky cyborg, Murderbot was created and executive produced by Oscar-winning siblings Chris and Paul Weitz (About a Boy, American Pie, The Golden Compass). It’s adapted from 2017’s All Systems Red, the first book in the award-winning The Murderbot Diaries series of science fiction novels and novellas by author Martha Wells, and also stars Noma Dumezweni, David Dastmalchian, Sabrina Wu, Akshay Khanna, Tattiawna Jones, and Tamara Podemski.
Podemski (Outer Range) and Khanna (Polite Society) portray Bharadwaj and Ratthi, two of the space-hippie scientists on a team exploratory trip to an exoplanet that doesn’t go as planned and requires the assistance of the anti-social SecUnit leased out for this dangerous mission. The roles required them to act off of Skarsgård’s stoic android amid the ensemble cast’s chaotic and comedic tone permeating the series, which is a hallmark of Wells’s popular source material.
If you’re already excited after seeing Skarsgård as a sentient AI cyborg in the trailer, then the good news is that you don’t have long until the series premieres on Apple TV+. While you wait, here’s an exclusive chat I had with Podemski and Khanna about what could become one of the best Apple TV+ shows.
TechRadar: What attracted you most to this unusually intriguing Murderbot project?
Tamara Podemski: “I think a strong woman voice in the world of sci-fi, that was really very attractive to me. And the creative team behind it. I didn’t know about anyone who’d been cast yet, other than Alex. So it was really the world that Martha Wells created and the whole team behind it.”
Akshay Khanna: “I’m such a huge sci-fi nerd as well, so for me, these are Hugo and Nebula Award-winning books. At the time they weren’t on my radar, then I read them all when I got the audition call for it and I thought, ‘I have to be in this show.’ And luckily there was a character called Ratthi who I assumed was about my age and I thought that’s the guy for me.”
TR: Can you elaborate on working with Alexander Skarsgård within the detailed sci-fi sets and locations during the production?
TP: “He’s a consummate professional so he can go in and out of character and flip-flop all over. Sometimes he has the mask on and sometimes he doesn’t. He’s always there for us, even though it looks like we’re acting with a rock, he would be there giving us everything we need. So that made our job easy. There’s the crew and we had our fun, but doing anything with Murderbot is just not easy, and that’s the point.”
AK: “Set-wise we did a lot of stuff on location as well and that’s why it looks so very real. The planet we’re on there’s live locations with weather conditions and that sort of thing. It just makes it look much more real.”
TR: How did the Weitz Brothers help guide and craft your performances, and were their improvisational elements in some of the funnier scenes?
AK: “I think Chris and Paul are fantastic directors and they’re great writers, but 99% of what we say is in the script. Every so often they’d come over and say, “Hey, say this differently.” Or we’ll be able to say to them, because they make you feel so comfortable, “I’ve got an idea that could be funny.” They’re fantastic collaborators and they want the show to be as good as it can be. They’re not super precious about every little thing. If there’s a good idea to be had, they don’t care where it comes from. They’re brilliant.”
TP: “When you trust your playmates the way that we did it was an instantaneous kind of safety and comfort. We all just fell in love with each other very quickly. That’s just a bit of magic no matter what the casting is. Chris and Paul did a really good job putting this team together, but then it’s just left up to luck and we had that the first day we met and we built from there. It allows play to happen when you trust each other and you know that you can throw out ideas to whomever. That’s golden!”
Murderbot debuts May 16 with a two-episode premiere exclusively on Apple TV+, one of the best streaming services, with new chapters appearing every Friday until the season finale on July 11.