Alicia Vikander and Oscar Isaac star in esteemed screenwriter Alex Garland’s directorial debut, Ex Machina, a sci-fi story with natural and artificial intelligence at its core.

Alicia Vikander & Oscar Isaac On ‘Ex-Machina’

In Ex Machina, Isaac plays Nathan, a tech genius who has holed himself up in a remote residence where he’s testing out A.I. designs – of which Vikander plays the most intelligent, Ava. Arriving at the retreat to test Ava is one of Nathan’s employees Caleb, who is played by British actor Domhnall Gleeson.

“It’s very rare to have an intelligent sci-fi action thriller,” Vikander told uInterview in an exclusive interview. “I did feel all of those, those fears trying to find out the plot; you didn’t know what character to follow or trust. And still it’s only three people, in one very contained space.”

Isaac, speaking of Garland’s script for Ex Machina, added, “It was just great. The way it was constructed, the way that it all flows together and really the dialogue. The fact that the action sequences in the film are these moments when these people are torturing each other with their brains; it’s pushed by the dialogue.”

While the dialogue is at the center of the film propelling the narrative forward, for Vikander, the role was also rather physical. Clad in a futuristic bodysuit, Vikander had to move as though she wasn’t quite human. Without a rigid idea for how this particular robot would look in motion, Vikander had to explore it on her own.

“It was a lot of physical preparations to find the way she moves and the way she talks and creating something that isn’t human – which is normally, at least, what I know about the characters that I‘ve taken on before,” Vikander explained. “It was a lot of fun.”

Isaac had his own fun on the set of Ex Machina while shooting a scene in which he completes a choreographed dance with another A.I., Kyoko. “Delicious. Sweaty and delicious,” Isaac said, recalling the day on set. “And, it was actually twice as long, but I think they cut it down to the perfect size in the film.”

Ex Machina is currently in limited release.