The beloved Murderbot book series by Martha Wells is coming to the small screen on May 16, and if you're a sci-fi lover, there's reason to get excited. Murderbot stars Alexander Skarsgård as a self-hacking security construct (called a SecUnit) who has overridden its own governor module, the bit of technology that forced it to obey humans. Now it has free will and can do whatever it wants...so long as the humans don't find out what it's done and melt it down to scrap. With such high stakes, it can't afford to slip up, so rather than drawing attention it distracts itself by binge-watching cheesy soap operas. Who among us hasn't?
The Murderbot Diaries books have won a slew of major science fiction literary awards, including the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus. But even more importantly, they've carved out a passionate fanbase of readers who can't get enough of the SecUnit's dry sense of humor and unflinching analysis of human nature. The books are fun as well as exciting, and they're a perfect fit for the sort of thought-provoking science fiction brand that Apple TV+ has been building over the years. It's hard to overstate what a good match this book series is for this streaming platform. According to Skarsgård, the unique tone of the series was something that drew him to the project.
"It was just tonally very, very different from anything I had played or read or seen before," Skarsgård told us in an exclusive interview ahead of the season premiere. "When I started reading All Systems Red, the first novella by Martha Wells that Murderbot, the season, is based on, I expected a very different, more kind of confident, assertive classic hero's journey type of story. I did not expect to meet a character who was so socially awkward, and confused and appalled by humans, and who just wanted to be left alone to watch the space soap opera. So it just was such a delicious character, and something tonally that I definitely hadn't done before."
Part of the appeal for Skarsgård came down to where he was in his career when this opportunity came along. After several heavy projects in a row, the tone of Murderbot was like a breath of fresh air. "I was also at a place, this was about two-and-a-half years ago I think that I first heard about the project, and I'd just done The Northman and Infinity Pool...two darker, tonally darker projects and characters," he recalled. "So I was really ready for for a palate cleanser to do something more comedic and slightly lighter in touch, you know."
The voice for Murderbot's titular SecUnit is one of the big appeals of the series, both in the books and the TV show. Given how important it is to nail that all-important tone, I was curious whether Skarsgård had any meetings with author Martha Wells to discuss it, and how he and the team behind the series went about fine-tuning the voice for Murderbot.
"I didn't meet Martha until we were actually [filming], she came up to Toronto when we were shooting. I didn't talk to her prior to that," he said. "So finding the character...we stayed pretty close and true to the novella. And it was in collaboration with Chris and Paul Weitz, the showrunners, and the writers that I kind of shaped and found my version of Murderbot. But again, I think we're quite true to the book."
Murderbot has to defend its favorite show Sanctuary Moon against haters
Murderbot is a comedic sci-fi series with a lot of different elements at play. One which is sure to delight both newcomers and long-time fans of Wells' books is the in-world soap opera that the SecUnit loves to binge watch, titled The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon. The Apple series went all out on Sanctuary Moon, hiring a bunch of incredible guest stars like John Cho, Jack McBrayer, Clark Gregg, and DeWanda Wise and filming scenes to bring the show-within-a-show to life.
Sanctuary Moon is about as cheesy as they come...at least at first glance. Something about the soap speaks deeply to Skarsgård's Murderbot, and it will not stand for anyone badmouthing its favorite show. But does Skarsgård have any personal Sanctuary Moon in his own life? A guilty pleasure show he will defend down to the last?
"I got asked that question earlier today and I gotta come up with a good answer," he said. "I have a couple of shows that I go back and rewatch like Alan Partridge, The Thick of It...Veep is one of those. But I wouldn't call them guilty pleasure because they're like universally, highly acclaimed beloved shows, so it's not like [Sanctuary Moon]. Sanctuary Moon is great because a lot of people...it's not highbrow, people are like, 'How can you watch that?' and Murderbot has to defend it. "
"Someone pitched...that I should watch like one of the [Real Housewives] of, I can't remember which one it was, Washington D.C. maybe. So that is my homework, I'm gonna watch all the Housewives of different cities and see which one sticks."
Murderbot premieres its first two episodes May 16 on Apple TV+. New episodes will follow each Friday for the rest of its 10-episode first season.
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