ashida Jones is the embodiment of what might once have been called a Renaissance (wo)man, but these days more often gets dubbed a multihyphenate. She's best known as an actor—as a straight-woman in projects like the beloved and , a recurring guest on comedy series from to to , a voice actor on and , and roles in more dramatic projects like and . But she has also made a career behind the camera, as a producer ( ), director ( , the Grammy-winning doc about her father, music producer Quincy Jones), and writer ( , ).
In , the new Apple TV+ dark sci-fi dramedy she produced and stars in, she gets to do a few things that even she hasn't done before. For one, she acts opposite a robot, the titular Sunny, who possesses, as her name suggests, the kind of "Hey girl!" pep that Jones' misanthropic Suzie can hardly tolerate. For another, she's working in two languages, as the tech-thriller mystery of Sunny's genesis—the homebot appears as a consolation gift following the disappearance of Suzie's family in a mysterious aviation incident—unfolds across the brightly lit neon nights of Kyoto.
Even as the series is focused on our relationships to technology, it also explores the very human experience of grief, a theme which particularly appealed to Jones in the wake of losing her own mother, the model and actor , Jones gives "a performance that’s worth watching on its own merits, as she locates the vulnerability within Suzie’s flatness and channels her charm into making a grouchy hero.
