When I ran into Goran Visnjic and Grace Gummer at the CBS party earlier this summer, I knew they were both on “Extant,” but I didn’t know how closely they were working together.
Of course, the show is being sold on Halle Berry’s star power, but the extensive ensemble cast includes Visnjic, Gummer, Camryn Manheim, Maurey Sterling, Annie Wersching and Hiroyuki Sanada. Molly (Berry) returns from a space mission pregnant, while her husband John (Visnjic) is developing Ethan (Pierce Gagnon), a robot child.
CraveOnline: Grace, we don’t see you a lot in the trailers. What do you play in “Extant?”
Grace Gummer: I play Goran’s business partner in the Humanics lab and I help create Ethan, their prototype robot child.
Is there a lot of technical dialogue?
Goran Visnjic: Well, my background was “ER” so it was much more technical jargon. This is nothing compared to that. We’re actually using all of it but it’s not very complicated from what I’m used to saying in a scene. We still have explanations and a bunch of technical jargon. She’s using quite a lot when they talk about robotics and Ethan.
Even on “ER,” we understood it because we believed you understood it.
Goran Visnjic: That’s the point. The same here. If you believe me, if you believe that I know what I’m saying…
Grace Gummer: And it doesn’t sound like arbitrary scientific mumbo jumbo.
Goran Visnjic: No, no, no. It does make sense. There is no fake invented stuff. It all does make sense, but this is not very far away in the future science-fiction.
So it’s all based on real technology somewhat. It’s more advanced but it’s based on all the things that currently exist.
Goran Visnjic: It’s science-fiction, so it’s possible. Of course, we don’t have artificial intelligence yet, but we know theoretically that it’s a possible thing to do. If somebody told you 20-30 years ago how iPhones are going to look today and Siri and different other programs, you probably wouldn’t believe them. Now it looks funny. Siri is not perfect but it’s a step up. So we’re getting closer.
Grace, what is your character’s relationship with Molly?
Grace Gummer: Well, in the pilot it opens up with me having a very close, maternal relationship with Ethan, the child, because I have created him with Goran’s character and I’ve helped raise him in a way. So she comes back and I’m threatened by her definitely. I’m jealous and I have a connection with her son, which also she doesn’t really like. So there’s some drama there.
Does John have a personal stake in creating Ethan?
Goran Visnjic: He’s been a robotics scientist. That was his choosing, but the reason to create Ethan and not to create an adult grown-up robot is that he understand that in order to create something like that, he needs to give him human experience. Basically this robot needs to learn like kids learn, from the beginning.
And, Molly and him have been suffering for infertility for years, so this is a way for him to say, “Okay, I’m going to create my own child if I can’t have one.” An infertility program wouldn’t work for them properly because Molly’s job, being an astronaut, she wouldn’t be able to go through all the fertility programs and all that stuff. So this was his way of saying, “Okay, I’m going to do this my own way.”
Does he get attached to Ethan?
Goran Visnjic: Oh yeah, yeah. He is, already.
Grace Gummer: He’s his father. It’s a real kid. He’s raised like a real kid, he’s treated like a real kid, he’s loved like a real kid.
Goran Visnjic: That’s a conflict between Grace’s character and mine is that she wants Ethan to be raised more in the laboratory environment. I want to raise him more as a normal child in a way, and then we get into an even better conflict but we can’t talk about that. It’s very complicated but that’s afterwards.
Grace Gummer: Yeah, we can’t really reveal what will happen. We don’t want to spoil anything for you.
Did John and Molly meet through being scientists together?
Goran Visnjic: Well, he was working on a project. He was one of the creators of BEN which is the artificial intelligence on Molly’s space station, the Seraphim. So that’s how they meet. Yes, Molly was an astronaut preparing for this flight and John was one of the computer robotic scientists working on this project.
Have they been in communication for the 13 months she was onboard?
Goran Visnjic: Oh yeah, regularly. We see that in the pilot. Because of the limitations of the speed of light and radio waves, we can’t talk. We can’t communicate because there’s a lag, but we’ve been constantly sending messages to each other.
How many of those messages did you actually record for the course of the show?
Goran Visnjic: I don’t know, many. We’ve been just doing them all the time and using them occasionally.
Did you do a day of all video messages?
Goran Visnjic: No, not like that. They write it in a show when they need it and we just record it. It’s just a little bit easier to record it because it’s a video versus a proper big camera and setups. That’s all.
The script made a big splash last summer. Were you aware it had won a contest when it came to you?
Grace Gummer: No.
Goran Visnjic: Not then. Once we started working on it, they told us about Mickey Fisher and everything, but I was unaware.
Grace Gummer: I was too.
Grace, are you going to be on season three of “The Newsroom?
Grace Gummer: I am.
Is Hallie still on the campaign trail?
Grace Gummer: No.
How is her relationship with Jim this season?
Grace Gummer: You’ll just have to wait and see.
