VIDEO EXCLUSIVE: Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja On Acting With A ‘Robot’ In ‘After Yang’

Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja is just ten years old but is already wise beyond her years.

She stars in After Yang, a movie that delves into a family’s story as they explore the intricacies of technology as it toes the line of humanity. Tjandrawidjaja plays the daughter, Mika, who is adopted from China. Mika struggles with feeling like she doesn’t belong in her family. To help, the family purchases Yang, a robot babysitter to give Mika cultural facts and insight into her birth country. When Yang malfunctions, they search for a way to fix him.

Tjandrawidjaja shares whether or not she really thinks robots can be friends with humans in an exclusive new uInterview with Erik Meers. 

“I don’t think anyone can really know,” she said. “After Yang is set in the future. Right now, it’s not like After Yang yet. Robots don’t have that connection with humans. They don’t have a personality yet, but I’m pretty sure that someday in the future, humans will be able to become friends with robots and they can be a part of humans’ lives.”

The young actress displayed her acting chops as she explained her tactic to make acting with a “robot” a little bit easier.

“In the movie, my character already thinks Ming the robot is like her brother, so I just pretended that he was my brother and gave a little sister type of acting,” Tjandrawidjaja said. “I don’t think I was thinking about talking to a robot, but more of talking to a brother, so I don’t think there was really a challenge because I was talking to a robot.”

After Yang hits the theaters on March 4.