I’m so glad that showed up and you saw that, because that was exactly what I wanted to hopefully try and convey in each of those flashback scenes — with each of the family members, a different energy, in essence, coming from each of them. I built it in that each of the family members told Yang things that they would never tell anyone else. In many ways, he was the glue that sort of kept them together because, even though they could not connect with each other, they could connect with the Yang in some shape or form.

So those were all things that I brought into each of those scenes. I worked with an acting coach, and it was really helpful. We sort of had different fabrics that represented each of the family members, and even texturally, to feel different things in a tactile way, for Yang and each of them, I sort of wanted to bring that in and bring that to life on screen as well.

Did Kogonada key you in at all to the kinds of imagery he was going to use for Yang’s memory outside of those featuring you with Mika, Ada, or the rest of the family?

Oh, absolutely not, which is why it was so beautiful to see them on screen. I was experiencing them for the first time as an audience member. It’s really interesting, the whole idea of splicing the memories into these fragments. As you know, some lines are repeated and things like that. We had no idea that he was going to do that. A perfect example of that is the scene with Yang and Kyra. I had no intention of going into that scene with Yang becoming sort of emotional. In that moment, I was really trying to restrain myself the entire time, because I just didn’t think that this robot would experience emotions in the same way that humans would. So I kept restraining that, and yet, as that scene just played out, it just came out because it was just such a real, authentic moment that these two characters were having, and the words just felt so alive.

So we finished that take, and I was incredibly emotional, and I needed some time. I thought to myself, “Well, that was really fun, but that’s for sure never going to make the movie, because there’s no way he could use that.” And the way in which, after I saw it come together, he was able to splice those moments together — suddenly he’s emotional and then suddenly he’s not — it was just so masterfully done, and again, keeping the mystery alive of how human or artificial this character really is.