19 Dec 2014 2:18 PM PT
by Charlie Jane Anders on Dec 19, 2014 at 10:55 Am
Person of Interest just ended its fall season with a hell of a cliffhanger. What happens next? We won’t know until January 6, when the next episode airs. But Amy Acker, who plays Root, tells us that episode was their most challenging to film. And she also tells us the big question that lies beneath the show’s fourth season.
Warning: Spoilers for last Tuesday’s Person of Interest ahead...
We were lucky enough to have a phone conversation with Acker yesterday, and here’s what she told us.
That scene in Tuesday’s episode, where you’re speaking for the Machine and interacting with the little kid who’s speaking for Samaritan, was intense. What was it like filming that?
[That actor] was so good. He was just incredible! The first time he read the scene — everyone had been talking about it leading up, like “You won’t believe this kid we saw. We thought we would have to probably cast like a 14 or 16 year old just to be able to do all the dialogue, and to get you know the intention of what was happening, and they said this nine year old boy came in and just like nailed it and so we got to that scene and he was super creepy and wonderful and then delightful in real life.”
It was a challenging scene for me because I had [only] had one other scene where the Machine spoke through me, and that wasn’t a dialogue with someone. I was just kind of telling Control what the Machine was saying. It was a little more challenging having to hear Samaritan speak to me as Root and then as the Machine, and then not responding as Root, but trying to respond as the Machine. It was challenging. But I mean he was so great, and the whole episode was really fun and definitely one of my favorites to film.
People have noticed you act differently when you’re speaking for the Machine, versus when you’re speaking as Root. In your mind, is she hearing words in her head and then repeating what the Machine says? And how do you try to convey that it’s not her talking?
Well, that was that we’re trying to explore a little bit, as we did that scene. We talked about almost like being in a trance. And then we kind of came around to the fact that, you know, whether it was Root or the Machine, but whoever, or both, they were both angry at Samaritan, so that there was an animosity in the delivery of these lines, but also trying not to let Root’s personality and what Root might add to the conversation [come through.] Root wasn’t adding anything of her own, other than maybe a potential look that she couldn’t help but snap out of being the Machine to respond to.
There’s a moment where Samaritan says “you know, you’re not like them,” and you sort of look down and there’s this sort of facial expression that comes over you and I was wondering if that’s Root or the machine and what you felt like that meant in the moment.
I was trying to make it seem like that that was something — that Root was like, “Why are you letting Samaritan talk to you like this?” But then having to refrain from sharing anything she wanted to, and then really just getting back into responding as the Machine wanted her to come across to Samaritan. So I think a lot of it was like trying to put up a front [as if] the Machine’s [telling her] “This is the plan, this is what we’re doing, and don’t mess it up.”