Rebecca Front was sent to "Synth School" to learn how to act like a robot in TV show ‘Humans’.
The 51-year-old actress – who is married and has teenage children Oliver and Tilly – stars as a synthetic nurse alongside Gemma Chan and Tom Goodman-Hill in the new Channel 4 drama, which is based in a future reality where every family owns a robot servant that looks eerily life-like.
Front and the other actors portraying the AI had to attend a robot training camp where they practised how to move their arms and eyebrows to differentiate them from the real humans.
Speaking to Radio Times magazine, she said: "It was all done with enormous attention to detail. They sent all the synths off to ‘Synth School’ with a movement expert. It was enormous fun – like going back to drama school.
"We had to relearn everything, starting from the basics. From the breathing, the blinking, where you hand your arms – it was the most fascinating things to get to grips with. It was quite daunting conveying (emotions) without all of the thing that you would normally use to show that you were getting cross. I had to just do it physically – without raising my eyebrows, or huffing and puffing. That was my challenge. When my husband saw it he said he couldn’t tell the difference!"
Front believes it’s only a matter of time before the premise of the programme becomes reality because the human race is already surrounding itself with masses of technology such as smart phones.
She said: "I find it terrifying that we’ve already let these things into our homes; its just that – for the moment – they’re in a different shape."
Rebecca Front’s robot training
