Ivanna Sakhno Is Hacking the Blockbuster Mainframe

In M3GAN 2.0, the titular cult-loved killer doll isn’t the only advanced AI wreaking havoc. Enter AMELIA, the new bot on the block, and she’s out for blood.

But while the original 2022 horror-comedy used separate physical and voice actresses to play M3GAN, writer/director Gerard Johnstone opted to give the new android an updated aesthetic for his sequel, casting rising Ukrainian actress Ivanna Sakhno to star as the government asset.

Sakhno was game. The role is the 27-year-old’s biggest to date; however, it’s hardly her first experience with action blockbusters (having held supporting roles in 2018’s Pacific Rim Uprising and 2018’s The Spy Who Dumped Me). She’s also built a reputation playing hardened-yet-skilled fighters, as she’s proved with her work on the Star Wars spinoff series Ahsoka as Jedi-in-training Shin Hati.

While AMELIA ultimately goes rogue after the doll’s creator M3GAN’s creator Gemma (Allison Williams) gets hacked, Sakhno still manages to imbue her with fierceness, stoicism, and, above all, humanity. Speaking with Maire Claire over Zoom, ahead of M3GAN 2.0’s June 27th release, the L.A.-based actress explains why she’s drawn to characters with a tough exterior. “They inspire me to have more compassion towards myself,” she says. “In order to understand somebody with such darkness and dark depth to it, you have to find compassion towards those characters. That only leads to more compassion towards others and more love and acceptance towards oneself.”

Here, Sakhno shares why she has a soft spot for the villain, what was on her AMELIA playlist, and her thoughts on AI.

Marie Claire: You’ve appeared in a lot of big American sci-fi franchises, and your parents are filmmakers in Ukraine. When you were growing up, what was your cinema diet like?

Ivanna Sakhno: I've learned such a great deal from my parents—watching them collaborate and learning what it means to be an artist, as well as the hardship behind being an artist in a developing country that became independent very recently. My parents really tried to keep me away from the film world as much as possible and enrolled me in an arts academy for children. I was studying to become a painter and a sculptor. I spent eight years studying everything about the arts. It was a pretty intense schedule—basically from 8:00 a.m. until 6:30 p.m. since I was 5-years-old. Although [my parents] were very careful about having my and my brother's lives be intertwined with the film industry, they did show us lots of films.

I grew up watching a lot of Ukrainian filmmakers like Alexander Dovzhenko and his film Earth [from the] 1930s. He was a great influence on filmmakers around the world at that time, and he is sort of a pioneer in lyrical storytelling and symbolism.

[I watched] lots of international cinema, as well: Krzysztof Kieślowski, his trilogy, Colors, The Seventh Seal. My mom is a huge fan of French cinema. I was so taken by Amélie when I first saw it when I was 8-years-old. I fell in love with her, her way of thinking, and the whimsical nature of how she saw the world. It was like the first seed of me understanding that I wanted to explore cinema not only in my country, but also outside of my country with the rest of the world.

MC: M3GAN and M3GAN 2.0 writer/director Gerard Johnstone reached out to you to play AMELIA because he was a fan of Ahsoka. What was your reaction when you found out he wanted you to play the new robot?

IS: I first received the script and was moved by it. On the page, it was really funny and grounded in some moments and a little bit bananas in others, and AMELIA took my heart. There was so much of her in the original script that was the spine for me. I immediately wanted to meet with Gerard and, thankfully, he was flying from New Zealand to L.A., so we got to meet and play around in the room. We had a camera and started playing around with her physicality and movement, did a few scenes together, and from that point on, I became part of the team, and they welcomed me, which I was delighted about.

MC: You’ve done a lot of physical acting in the past, but what did you discover about AMELIA, and maybe yourself, while figuring out her movements?

IS: The characters that we as actors get to play, it’s very much connected to understanding the human psyche and human nature as well. Every single time you get to play a character brings more understanding, not only about them, but about yourself and that spectrum of the light and the dark. I learned so much about AMELIA and so much about compassion towards oneself. She's trying to understand herself, her beginning, what wires us, and some of the darkness that we hold from coming into this world—which it's quite cruel, the world we live in.

MC: You wear a few outfits as AMELIA, including an incredible, more traditional robotic silver suit. What were the first fittings like for that?

IS: That was one of the steps of coming into her. It was pieces that they created to fit, and then they started building from that, so it was a process of nearly a month.

It was quite restricting filming in it. We only had one time, actually, when we did wear the entire suit just to give notes to the costume department whenever we needed a little bit more give in some parts. It has multiple layers, and your skin doesn't necessarily get to breathe. But AMELIA is also limited in some ways. That's what she's trying to meet: something greater than herself.

MC: It’s interesting because she’s futuristic, but she also looks like a more traditional robot at times or has notes of the 20th-century femme fatale, Bond girl. So, in some ways, she’s also timeless.

IS: There is a vintage aspect to AMELIA, especially when she's playing with Jemaine Clement's character [Alton]. Her physicality and her look were a reference to when Alton was growing up, when he was finding out his attraction towards women. So, we went back into the ‘80s, ‘70s, and I listened to that stuff as well.

But that is AI to us: It's very much future-driven and timeless. It encapsulates human history in one. It can bring you anywhere you want to.

MC: AMELIA seems like the villain, but her experience is universal and about discovering one’s origin. How did you relate to her and find her humanity?

IS: I really want the audience to be able to go in and potentially see themselves in her. I do think that AMELIA, although she is seen as a danger to the world, the world is dangerous to her. She sees everyone as a threat, and she's trying to solve that problem the only way she knows how, which is how she was raised, really, and taught to deal with it.

MC: Did Gerard give you any robot references or action movies to study in preparation, or was there anything you were looking at for inspiration?

IS: It was fluid: He would give me some references, sometimes I would give some to him.

The main [reference] was Metropolis. There's a nod to Metropolis in our film when AMELIA’s sitting on her throne, like Maria when she awakens for the first time, which I think is brilliant. It is one of my favorite films and such an iconic creation in the world of cinema. It was the first depiction of the AI.

I took a look at some Transformers movies, as well, lots of different inspirations from Japanese robots and different AI voices in the way they communicate and speak. I also took some parts from animals that are a little bit rigid at times.

MC: Music is so integral to the world of M3GAN. Did you have an AMELIA playlist?

IS: I had a few artists I relied on. Thom Yorke is always part of my playlists when I build characters. He has such a depthful ear in lots of the non-lyrical music that he creates. So, one of them was called “In The Trees” from a score that he did [for the film Confidenza]. That sounded to me like what silence sounds like to AMELIA. And Thom Yorke’s “Hearing Damage.”

Then there was this one song by Bad Omens and Poppy called [“V.A.N.” a.k.a.] “Violence Against Nature” to hype me up. Björk, “All Is Full of Love.” “OKAY” by JT. That one was definitely for the bombshell sequence when she's in the gold dress. Blur, “Battery in Your Leg,” “The Border” by Nicolas Godin, Fiona Apple, and Amanda Lear, “Follow Me” was a little bit old-school.

MC: With her being the latest diva-esque villain in pop culture, who would you consider some of your favorite she-did-nothing-wrong femme fatales?

IS: I'm so surrounded by AMELIA right now, so I ride or die for her. She did nothing wrong ever, ever, ever. I would also say Natalie Portman's character [Mathilda] from Léon: The Professional.

MC: What was it like to shoot the final sequence in which you’re facing off with M3GAN and Allison Williams?

IS: The final sequence was lots and lots of stunts, obviously. That is the challenging aspect of it, for sure, along with the suit itself being quite limiting. But it really taught me the art of collaboration because the costume department was so on top of it, trying to make it as easy as possible for us to be in that environment and constantly came up with new possibilities for me to breathe in the suit and maybe take it off in between the fighting sequences.

I was in constant muscle spasms, honestly, doing those stunts. But working with Amie [Donald], who plays M3GAN, is such a gift because she gives it 100 percent, and she's so grounded in her being and how she portrays M3GAN. I had loads to learn from her, and I'm so grateful to know her spirit as well.

Allison is a phenomenal collaborator, as well as a producer. She is really the reason why I've gotten the chance to be part of this family and explore AMELIA because it was her idea to bring a real actress to play AMELIA. I have to really give it to her. She was always on set. Even if she had a day off as an actor, she would still show up as a producer and be there every step of the way and lead us with such grace and care and intelligence. I only hope to be an ounce of that when I get the chance to produce my own stuff. She’s definitely at the forefront of the badass women of this world.

MC: Beyond being interested in producing, but what else are you hoping to do next?

IS: I am currently filming the second season for Ahsoka. There are a few really wonderful projects in the making that I hopefully can be a part of—some of them are independent films. My beginning love for cinema was steeped in European cinema, so I really would love to continue finding the balance of doing these wonderful, big action films that I do, especially with age and enjoying them more, and also exploring independent filmmakers and being part of the smaller projects. All that I seek is people that I feel aligned with and humanity in the stories that we tell.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.