Humans (TV series)

Cast

Main

Introduced in series 1

• Manpreet Bachu as Harun Khan, a friend of Mattie, who helps her hack the synths.
• Emily Berrington as Niska, a conscious synth built by David Elster to be Leo's sister, assigned to work as a prostitute when they were separated. She is violent and resentful of humans and wishes to live her own life, but later starts to care about humans. In the second season, she uploads the consciousness program to the synth network, but only a few synths are successfully upgraded. After a whirlwind relationship with Astrid, Niska returns to the Hawkins and asks to be tried as a human for her crimes. In the third season, after Astrid is injured in a terrorist attack, Niska spends the series looking for revenge for her girlfriend. At the end of the third season, Niska meets V, originally Odi, who tells her she is unique and has great power.
• Ruth Bradley as Karen Voss, a detective inspector and the partner of Detective Sergeant Pete Drummond. Those around her have not discovered that she is a conscious synth and was created by David Elster to replace his deceased wife, Beatrice. Karen wants to end her life but her programming forbids suicide. By the second season, she has become more accepting of her status and is in a relationship with Pete.
• Lucy Carless as Mattie Hawkins, Laura and Joe's teenage daughter, who is upset that her family is falling apart and angry at the emerging role of synths in society. Despite her own intelligence, she feels useless, claiming that synths will soon be able to do anything she can do. She is skilled in computer programming and hacking.
• Gemma Chan as Anita/Mia, a servile synth belonging to the Hawkins family. She was sold as new, but is actually Mia, a conscious synth built by David Elster to be Leo's babysitter, kidnapped and hacked with new software. By the second season, she has begun working in a café, and is romantically interested in her employer.
• Pixie Davies as Sophie Hawkins, Laura and Joe's younger daughter. She names the new family synth Anita after a friend of hers who has moved away, and develops a strong affection for the synth.
• Jack Derges as Simon, Jill Drummond's attractive synth caregiver and physiotherapist. Pete is dissatisfied with Simon, thinking that he is his replacement.
• Sope Dirisu as Fred, a conscious synth built by David Elster to be a brother to Leo. Professor Hobb likens Fred to the Mona Lisa in terms of the complexity of his design. He has gone missing between series one and two, although Max believes that he is safe.
• Rebecca Front as Vera, a medical synth from the NHS who is supposed to replace Odi as George Millican's caregiver. Millican is frustrated with her relentlessly officious and domineering manner, and generally refuses her help.
• Tom Goodman-Hill as Joe Hawkins, Laura's husband. He bought Anita because he felt Laura's absence caused a void, and he needed help managing their family.
• Jill Halfpenny as Jill Drummond, Pete's disabled wife. She is dissatisfied with Pete.
• Ivanno Jeremiah as Max, Leo Elster's conscious synth and confidant, built by David Elster to be a brother to Leo.
• Neil Maskell as Pete Drummond, an unhappy Special Technologies Task Force detective sergeant who has always been suspicious of synths. He is partnered with Karen Voss. By the second series, Pete and Jill have separated and Pete is shown to be involved with Karen despite his knowledge of her true nature.
• Colin Morgan as Leo Elster, son of David Elster, a part-synth fugitive believed by the rest of the world to have died in a car accident; he was in a fatal accident as a child and his father developed synth components to cope with the damage to his brain. He spent the first series trying to track down and reunite the conscious synths made by his father, while in the second series he is trying to help synths adjust to the spread of the consciousness program.
• Katherine Parkinson as Laura Hawkins, a lawyer and mother of three who feels uncomfortable around synths. She had concerns about Anita and sought to find out more about her. By the second season, she had become more accepting of the idea, agreeing to act as Niska's lawyer in her subsequent trial for murder while Niska underwent an assessment to determine if she was truly conscious.
• Theo Stevenson as Toby Hawkins, Laura and Joe's teenage son, who is attracted to, and has become protective of, Anita.
• Will Tudor as Odi, George Millican's malfunctioning synth caregiver. He is prone to system glitches, though Millican is unwilling to recycle him or return him to the NHS. He stays with the Hawkins briefly in series 2.
• * Tudor also portrays V, an artificial intelligence developed by Athena Morrow based on her deceased daughter Virginia. Following Day Zero, V inhabits Odi's body, having erased his consciousness at his request, and becomes the mythic purple-eyed "Synth Who Sleeps". V leads Niska to her so as to grant her connectivity to the internet and persuade her to become the synths' leader. Chloe Wicks voices the disembodied V in series 2.
• Danny Webb as Edwin Hobb, an artificial intelligence researcher. He is simultaneously concerned about and intrigued by the possibility of conscious synthetics. Hobb is a key player in the quiet government investigation to find the four synths deemed a threat.
• William Hurt as George Millican, a retired artificial intelligence researcher and widower who suffers memory loss and physical disabilities secondary to a stroke. He forms a special bond with his outdated caregiver synth named Odi. He previously worked with Leo's father.

  Introduced in series 2

• Marshall Allman as Milo Khoury, a techno-entrepreneur and owner of Qualia, a synth research corporation, who seeks to harness the sentient synthetics for himself.
• Sonya Cassidy as Hester, a synth who becomes self-aware from the consciousness program unleashed across the world. She is rescued from a synth-laboured facility by Leo and co., but soon starts to exhibit disturbing behaviour.
• Carrie-Anne Moss as Athena Morrow, an AI researcher based in San Francisco who has been invited to reverse engineer the consciousness program. She presents herself as unconcerned about the conscious synthetics, but in reality she has already independently developed her own sentient AI, who she refers to as "V", and is attempting to provide V with a new body.
• Billy Jenkins as Seraph Sam

  Introduced in series 3

• Holly Earl as Agnes, a synth in Mia and Max's group. She is suspicious of their leadership and sympathizes with the terrorists.
• Ukweli Roach as Anatole, a former courtesan synth who believes in a higher power, namely David Elster, and that synths were always meant to be given consciousness.
• Mark Bonnar as Neil Sommer, a charming scientist on a government commission with whom Laura develops a strong personal connection.
• Dino Fetscher as Stanley, an "orange-eyed" synth given to a reluctant Laura by the Dryden commission group as her personal synth and protector.
• Phil Dunster as Tristan

  Recurring

• Ellen Thomas as Lindsey Kiwanuka
• Jonathan Aris as Robert
• Stephen Boxer as David Elster, Leo's father and the creator of the conscious synths
• Spencer Norways as young Leo Elster
• Letitia Wright as Renie, a human who lives as if she were a synth and whom Toby dates
• Bella Dayne as Astrid, a waitress who becomes romantically involved with Niska, helping Niska become more emotionally invested with humans
• Ritu Arya as Flash, a house synth who, like Hester, becomes self-aware from the consciousness program. Flash is rescued by Max, and they find a new safe haven in an abandoned train.
• Sam Palladio as Ed, Mia's employer, with whom she forms a special bond. He is the owner of a beachside cafe.
• Akie Kotabe as Ji Dae-Sun

  Episodes

Production

Development

Filming

Themes

Broadcast and release

Marketing

Home media

Reception

Critical response

Awards and nominations

Chinese adaptation