Interview with Emily Berrington who plays Niska in Humans




Where do we find Niska in series two?

It’s a few months after she disappeared with the code for synth consciousness. She’s gone to Berlin, where she’s had some time to think about what she’s going to do with it.


Why has she gone to Germany? 

She needed to get somewhere she could reach with minimal air travel – synths don’t do well with air travel because of the airport security and metal detectors. We needed it to be somewhere she could get to by rail and where there’s an underground scene she can disappear into.


Niska’s concept of right and wrong was very different to most other people. Is she still militantly anti-human or has she mellowed?

What happened at the end of series one was that she finally encountered some humans who were good. George [William Hurt], for example, had a huge impact on her, because before that she thought humans were bad and synths were good. George presented no threat to her. Although that doesn’t mellow her, it puts a little crack in her very black-and-white view of the world. She’s in a state of turmoil over that. It’s very easy when you think you know exactly how everything is, and she’s found it quite distressing to have that shaken up.


She has a significant relationship with a human quite early on in series two.

It is really significant. She’s able to trust another human completely, and that’s not easy for her. It never would have happened at the beginning of the first series.


Have you had to approach Niska in a different way because of it?

Yes, I’ve had to make some significant changes in how I think about her. The wonderful thing about coming back for a second series is that we get to do something with a character you know really well, but who has developed. It’s really satisfying. It was tempting to go back to exactly how she was in series one, but our director Lewis Arnold kept reminding me that she’d been through significant changes, even though she is at her core the same being. She’s still tough and brittle and a fighter, ready to defend herself whenever she needs to.


She’s also got red hair…

Sometimes! She was very recognisable at the end of series one and probably quite lucky to get out of the country at all.


How did you have to change your performance this year?

It’s very difficult to achieve high stakes and heightened emotions when you’re so physically constrained, so we often practise the scenes first without the physicality. That lets us go where the scene needs to go where to go without worrying about what your hands are doing, and then we introduce the movement. You know [movement director] Dan O’Neill will come over and advise you on what you need to be doing. It’s about not falling into the trap of showing the audience how you feel. You just have to think it, which is what a lot of acting is anyway – Humans has made me a much better actor!


Was it easy to slip back into being a synth?

I was so nervous about doing it again. I’d already done a bit of work at home and was finding it quite difficult to recapture, but then we had a week of Synth School with Dan and the new and old synths. We went back to basics as if we were all new to it. I was really keen, because I thought I ought to be really good at it, having done it before. By the time we started filming, everybody was really confident again.


How was filming in Berlin?

Wonderful. I’d never been there before and we had a couple of really amazing nights out that I imagine would only have been possible in Berlin. We filmed a lot in public spaces, and the people there were so polite and kind about getting out of the way, which isn’t always the case when you’re filming on a busy London street.


Where does she see her future?

That’s a very difficult question – I don’t think she knows what the future can possibly hold for her because she doesn’t want to be human and fit in, but she doesn’t want to hide either. She doesn’t have much faith in humans accepting synths as equals, so she’s at a loss about what her life means and what her identity can be. She explores a lot of that in series two.


Was it inevitable that she would release the code, or has something happened in the past few months?

Something happens to help her make the final decision. There is a moment she goes from someone who is torn, not being sure of the right move, to making a decision. Whether she released the code now or in 100 years, I don’t think she’d be satisfied not knowing what would happen.


Does Niska, as an advocate of synth consciousness, fully comprehend what that might mean once it starts happening around the world?

No, I don’t think she does comprehend what it can mean, which is part of the problem with her making the decision. She can’t see what it will do, but she doesn’t like the status quo either. Is the unknown better, taking a leap in the dark?


And you’re back working with Katherine Parkinson in the West End, with Dead Funny.

I’ve decided I’m going to be contracted to work with her forever. She’s such a joy and it’s been fun doing something so completely different – our characters in it are totally unrecognisable compared to Humans. We’re having a brilliant time.

 

Watch the trailer for Human season 2, which premiere's tomorrow (October 30) night on Channel 4:

October 29, 2016 4:30am ET by Channel 4  

, , , , ,

  Shortlink to this content: http://bit.ly/2dOsc8N

SHARE THIS

Latest Press Releases