It’s not every day you find yourself getting existential with a film star – but as Guy Pearce’s new film is set in a futuristic world where life-like droids can’t be discerned from real people, it’s got him questioning what it is to be human.
In Zone 414, the actor plays David Carmichael, an ex-police officer tasked with finding the kidnapped daughter of the man who creates the world’s AI machines.
In order to find the missing girl, his character must befriend one of the look-alike robots, forcing him to reflect on what’s real, and what’s programming.
Pearce, best known for films including Memento and LA Confidential – as well as his rise to fame in Australian soap Neighbours – told Sky News it’s a question we may need to ask ourselves as real-world tech gets smarter.
“The whole evolution of technology and where we’re heading and this rapid desire for very smart people out there who invent technology to create versions of ourselves is really kind of fascinating and disturbing at the same time,” he said.
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“And the idea that will those robots, will those androids, become more human or more human than us, or will they become human at all? You know, that’s fascinating as well.”
The actor says he has been asking himself some fundamental questions.
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“Where does humanity really come from? Where does it sit? Is it only injected into us as human beings or is there just as much humanity in a chicken, but just because it doesn’t speak we don’t know and could it therefore be implanted into a robot?
“That whole idea about our identity and psychology in this kind of setting was really fascinating.”
Despite grappling with the issues around developments in AI, Pearce said the technology is not something he is familiar with.
However, the star suspects he’ll end up learning from the next generation.
“If Siri accidentally comes on, I’m immediately going, ‘no, off, I don’t need your help, go away!’
“I’m not so much a Luddite, but just an oldie I guess – it’s interesting having Monty, my little boy. He’s only five, so he’s not really aware of what’s possible on a screen yet, but certainly you see him being drawn to it. And I know there will clearly come a point, probably very quickly, where he’s way ahead of me.”
Pearce’s character in Zone 414 is a man of few words. He says he prefers to portray what’s going on through his physicality.
“I’m eliminating dialogue all the time if I can,” he said. “I’ve got to be careful not to fall into the pattern of just turning every character into a silent communicator, because that’s not right for every character – some people are just naturally much more verbose.
“But in this case we understand later the baggage that he’s bringing with him and that on some level he’s shutting down as a human being – he’s just doing what’s necessary to survive… there’s something in that that I find kind of sympathetic and sad, noble or frustrating as well.”
Earlier this year, Pearce played a love interest for Kate Winslet’s Mare in the hugely popular small-town US crime drama Mare Of Easttown.
As an old friend of the Oscar-winner, he came on to the project late after another actor dropped out – and admitted it still seems strange that he was in it at all.
“They had been shooting for some months anyway by the time I came in, funnily enough. I did one day on 12 March of last year and we shut down [due to the pandemic],” he said.
“And I really only had about seven or eight days work, so that in the end took about six months because we didn’t go back until September of last year to finish off my stuff, and so in a weird way I feel slightly disconnected from the show because it was such a brief time – but I also feel very connected to the show because of my connection with Kate.”
Pearce, who was born in Cambridgeshire but grew up in Australia, says he was “wrapped” when Winslet, Evan Peters and Julianne Nicholson won Emmys for their roles in the series.
“I was very, very happy for the show but it was funny too watching the show because my story is kind of really separate from everything else in Mare’s life,” he said. “I was really just there, I guess, to sort of remind Mare that she can have love in her life as well as work really hard.
“So it was funny watching the show because I just felt like I was a fan watching, you know, like anybody else can: Oh, and there’s me – oh that’s right, I forgot I did this.”
Zone 414 is available on digital download from 4 October
Hollywood celebrities are among thousands of people to have been evacuated from their homes as fires rip through areas of Los Angeles.
Sky News’ US correspondent Martha Kelner reported that Tom Hanks, Ben Affleck and Reese Witherspoon were all evacuated on Tuesday as wildfires continued to spread in the Pacific Palisades suburb of LA.
The area, which is home to billionaires as well as Hollywood A-listers, is located between Santa Monica and Malibu.
Other celebrities who have fled their homes include the award-winning actor James Woods, who said last night he had been safely evacuated from his home in Pacific Palisades.
But he added in a post on X: “I do not know at this moment if our home is still standing.”
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Actor Mark Hamill, best known for playing Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars films, also posted on social media last night saying he evacuated his home in Malibu and his family were “fleeing for our lives”.
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This Is Us actress Mandy Moore was also forced to leave her home due to the fires.
She said in two Instagram stories she had fled the Eaton fire, which is raging near Altadena, with her children, cats and dog. They have found temporary refuge with friends.
The actress said: “Trying to shield the kids from the immense sadness and worry I feel.
“Praying for everyone in our beautiful city. So gutted for the destruction and loss. Don’t know if our place made it.”
According to Velvet Ropes, which maps celebrity properties, Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson, Matt Damon, Steven Spielberg, Hilary Swank and Sally Field all have homes close to where fires are raging.
Dr Dre, Adam Brody and Leighton Meester, Tyra Banks, Martin Short, Anna Faris, Milo Ventimiglia, Linda Cardellini, Mary McDonnell, Adam Sandler, Miles Teller, and Jennifer Love Hewitt are also said to have houses in affected areas.
In neighbouring Malibu, which was also affected by fires in December, stars including Beyonce and Jay-Z, Kim Kardashian, Lady Gaga and Billie Eilish are said to be among the celebrity residents.
The Palisades blaze has already burnt through more than 11,000 acres of land while the Eaton one has caused the death of two people, Los Angeles County fire chief Anthony Marrone said on Wednesday.
The two other fires are known as Woodley and Hurst, after the main areas affected.
All four blazes are still growing, Mr Marrone said.
A reality TV personality known for appearing on shows like The Hills and Made In Chelsea has told Sky News her family have lost their homes in the California wildfires.
Stephanie Pratt, a model and the sister of fellow reality TV celebrity Spencer Pratt, lives in the Pacific Palisades in Los Angeles, where more than 30,000 people have fled their homes due to the fast-moving blaze.
Los Angeles fire chief Anthony Marrone said on Wednesday that the Palisades fire is still growing and that “well over 5,000 acres” have been burnt.
At least two people have been killed so far, with around 1,000 buildings destroyed.
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House surrounded by flames during wildfire
California governor Gavin Newsom earlier declared a state of emergency over the four wildfires in the south of the state.
Speaking to Sky News from London, an emotional Ms Pratt said: “It’s just so crazy, I had no idea what was happening.
“I talked to my dad yesterday and he said ‘The Palisades is burning’. He said that he was at my brother’s house on Chautauqua [Boulevard] and they were just watching the flames come.
“The firefighters came and said you got to leave.”
‘I don’t know if my house is there’
Ms Pratt said her parents and brother Spencer, who like her starred in the reality series The Hills, were safely evacuated from the area.
However, the 38-year-old added that “all of the phones are disconnected” and that she doesn’t know what had happened to her home.
“I talked to my neighbour last night and she told me that [Palisades Charter High School] had burnt down, and that’s directly behind me, and so had Gelson’s Supermarket which is adjacent,” she said.
“I just can’t reach anyone to see if my house is okay. I just Googled it and it said that it’s destroyed and terrible… I don’t know if my house is there.”
When she asked her dad about Spencer, 41, who is married to 38-year-old Heidi Montag – another co-star of The Hills – Ms Pratt said he told her “I’ve never seen him like this”.
“I’m assuming he’s just completely catatonic,” she added. “We don’t care about the material things or anything like that, but this was their family home.
“This is where they raised their two little kids.”
The Palisades fire is one of five blazes currently burning in southern California– evacuation orders were in place on Tuesday in Altadena after another fire, called the Eaton fire, started near a nature preserve.
A third blaze, called the Hurst fire, also ripped through Sylmar in the north of the city.
And according to the state department Cal Fire, two more blazes – the Woodley fire in Los Angeles and Tyler fire in Riverside – broke out on Wednesday.
Two School Of Rock co-stars, who met at the age of 10, have got married.
Caitlin Hale and Angelo Massagli, who played Marta and Frankie respectively in the 2003 classic alongside Jack Black, tied the knot in New York on Saturday.
The couple brought some of the original cast of the film, which centres on a pretend substitute teacher turning a group of musically gifted school children into a rock band, together to celebrate their nuptials.
Posting on Instagram, Hale, 33, shared various images of the day, including a photobooth picture with a handful of their former cast mates.
The former actress, who now works as a sonographer, wrote under the post: “Special thank you to everyone who contributed to an unforgettable day!”
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Rivkah Reyes, who played bass player Katie in the film, also posted about the wedding, sharing a video on TikTok.
The clip, set to Stevie Nicks’s Edge Of Seventeen, included cameos from Brian Falduto, who played Billy, Joey Gaydos Jr, who played Zack, and Aleisha Allen, who played Alicia, among others.
The use of the song was a nod to one of the scenes from the film where Black and Joan Cusack, who plays headteacher Rosalie Mullins, sing the song in a bar.
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“Celebrating the marriage of Caitlin & Angelo with my forever fam #schoolofrock #wedding,” Reyes wrote alongside the video, which showed them all dancing together.
After appearing together in the film the only contact Hale and Massagli had was through a WhatsApp chat set up with the entire cast, according to The New York Times.
The pair then both left show business and coincidentally reconnected while studying in schools in Florida.
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Massagli, 32, who now works as a lawyer for TikTok, according to The Times, told the paper the familiarity they both had due to working together when they were younger “cut through some of those early relationship hurdles”.