Sunny is a dark comedy series on Apple TV Plus which is set in Kyoto, Japan, and it stars Rashida Jones, who is also executive producer on the show. She plays Suzie, an American expat whose life is turned upside down when her husband and son disappear in a plane crash. To help with her grief, Suzie is given domestic robot Sunny and the pair develop an unlikely bond, forged deeper when they try to uncover the truth about what happened to Suzie’s family...
Here's everything you need to know about Sunny on Apple TV+...
Sunny release date
Sunny is a 10-episode series launching worldwide on Apple TV Plus from Wednesday July 10, with two episodes on this premiere date followed by a weekly episode release.
How to watch Sunny: stream the A24 comedy TV series online
Is there a trailer for Sunny?
Yes, a trailer for Sunny has now been released and you can check it out here below...
What is the plot of Sunny?
Suzie (Rashida Jones) is an American living in Kyoto, Japan, and her life is upended when her husband and son vanish during a mysterious plane crash. Her husband’s electronics firm give her domestic robot Sunny as a "consolation" and Suzie initially resents Sunny’s attempts to fill the void in her life. But gradually the pair become friends and they begin to investigate the dark truth behind what happened to Suzie’s family. And soon, they are drawn into a dangerous world Suzie never knew existed.
Sunny cast — who’s who in the darkly comic thriller
Sunny cast — Rashida Jones as Suzie
Rashida Jones plays grieving wife and mother Suzie in Sunny. "So many things attracted me to this project,’ says Rashida. ‘I’ve never been the lead in a show before and the mystery-thriller genre was new for me. I also felt I knew the series from the minute I read the first script. It's so original, weird and dark!’
Initially, sarcastic Suzie is hostile towards Sunny’s relentlessly optimistic charms and attempts to fill the void in her life. But, as she starts to wonder what other secrets her husband was keeping, they gradually form an offbeat bond. Together they investigate Masa’s work, the dystopian robotics company he worked for, and rumours that homebots have been killing people, getting drawn into a dangerous criminal underworld in the process…
"Suzie’s a bit of a loner and she isn’t much of a rule follower," says Rashida. "She knocks things over as she moves through this world - which is a bold thing to do in Japan, for anybody! I hope people are gripped and also find themselves really conflicted about Sunny."
* Rashida Jones has previously played Karen Filippelli in the American version of The Office and was Ann Perkins in Parks and Recreation. She’s also been in BlackAF, Toast of Tinseltown, On The Rocks, Duncanville, Angie Tribeca and Boston Public.
Who else is starring in Sunny?
Other cast in Sunny includes Jun Kunimura, Hidetoshi Nishijima, Joanna Sotomura, Judy Ongg, Annie the Clumsy and YOU.
Rashida told WTW: "I was starstruck when I first met Hidetoshi because I'd just watched his movie Drive My Car and he was so good in it. But he was pretty goofy with me right away and we connected and liked each other really quickly.
“Judy Ongg is a national treasure in Japan who has been working since she was young, but you wouldn’t know it because she’s humble, such a hard worker and hilarious!
“Annie the Clumsy is an absolutely lovely person and a huge talent. She’d never really been on camera before and was acting with a robot in her second language - I was so impressed!”
Behind the scenes and more on Sunny
Sunny is created by Katie Robbins (The Affair, The Last Tycoon), who also serves as showrunner, while the executive producer and director is Lucy Tcherniak (Station Eleven, The End of the F***ing World).
Sunny season 1 — filming locations
Shot in Kyoto and Tokyo at the height of summer, Lucy Tcherniak says she couldn’t imagine the series being filmed anywhere else: “Suzie is a fish out of water in a country where — although she’s lived there for 10 years — she can’t speak the language. There aren’t that many places in the world where you could imagine someone living for that long without being able to string a sentence together. It’s very easy to lose yourself in Japan and to isolate as an outsider. There’s also no place in the world where, even today, robots are as commonplace. So the specificity of Japan was really important.
"Shooting in Japan for six months informed all of our decisions. There would be so many times where we’d be doing something and someone on the Japanese crew would say, 'Well, that’s not quite correct,' whether it was a custom, a prop or something else. So getting that level of detail right was important to both Katie and I. It made the show better by making it more authentic.”
Tokyo locations for Sunny ranged from neighborhoods including Nishiikebukuro, Miitaka, Ueno, Koganei to inside the soundstages of the Toho Studios in Setagaya.
In Kyoto, locations included Yasaka Tower and the cobblestone street of Ninenzaka.
For the inside and outside sequences set at ImaTech, production was able to secure the historic Kyoto International Conference Center.
The exterior of Sakai Workshop was created at Furukawamachi, a classic old covered shotengai or shopping street, which has remained virtually unchanged for decades.
The company also filmed inside of Ichiran, a well-known ramen restaurant in the middle of Shijo Dori, Kyoto’s modern downtown shopping street, for flashback scenes in which Suzie meets Masa for the first time.
How was Sunny the robot brought to life?
Rather than being brought to life through computer-generated images or a person in a robot suit, Sunny was given a voice, character, personality, facial expressions and mobility by Joanna Sotomura, as she performed opposite Rashida Jones and other cast members, in real time.
“Filming was a really unique process. I would get rigged up with a helmet that has a camera and a monitor, they would wheel robot Sunny out, and then we would do the scenes. So, I move my head, she moves her head, I blink, she blinks, I talk and she talks," explains Joanna, who provides the robot’s voice and facial expressions. "I was usually tucked away while the actors reacted to the physical version. We had an incredible team of roboticists and puppeteers who brought Sunny to life. It was definitely a once in a lifetime experience to play a robot!”
