Almost Human

Jess Cagle: How did you go from being mechanical to very human?

Haley Joel Osment: That developed throughout the whole movie. I had a few meetings with Steven just talking about the film itself and a few of physicalities that the character would have. We had to find a medium. We had specific movements that were very basic. Not obnoxiously robotic. We didn't want to be too robotic. We had to find a medium for him to be noticeably non-human, things that would tweak your eye and make you notice that 'hey, this character is not real.' Finding that was a bit of a challenge, but eventually we got it down. Eventually we found a way. He never makes the complete leap, but he progresses in the film to being more human.

Did you lose the mechanical traits as the film progresses and the character becomes human?

We diluted it a little as [we] went on — as he becomes more human toward the end.

Can you give me examples of things that were mechanical in the beginning?

Whenever he turns a corner, he turns it the same every time, the same amount of steps and stuff like that — the same movements that became less pronounced.

Another thing, the eyes were important. Turn the eyes first, then the head. Don't blink. That never went away, but still it sort of slurred together as the film went on.

Jude Law plays the role of Gigolo Joe, a robo-stud

Cagle: Jan Harlan told me that the character of Gigolo Joe was much darker in Kubrick's original vision. Were you aware of that?

Jude Law: [In the original concept], once David was dumped he met up with a more adult mecha who led him through a more adult mecha world, and Gigolo Joe was much darker, much more aggressive, much more twisted.

[In Spielberg's film] David meets a content mecha rather than an aggressive mecha.

Steven said to me, as did a lot of people from the Kubrick camp, the middle act was the act that Kubrick stumped himself over and that was why, in a way, he never made the film. He couldn't get the middle act right.

As an actor, you walked the line between being very mechanical, cocking your head to make music, but being sexy and sympathetic. Tough line to walk?

That was my main concern from day one, and it was a question that I persistently plagued Steven with. How much can I let myself go to be a personality here? He, on the whole, encouraged me to go the whole way as a human and let him remind me of the laws of mecha. The dance became very important. Once you made that decision, he can dance, he can still only dance as far as you've programmed him.

The walk was always a repeat of itself. He never walks in a different way. There's a kind of limit within his freedom. It's a rather odd paradox.