Mr. Robot


Mr. Robot is an American psychological techno-thriller television series created by Sam Esmail for USA Network. It stars Rami Malek as Elliot Alderson, a cybersecurity engineer and hacker with social anxiety disorder, clinical depression, and dissociative identity disorder. Elliot is recruited by an insurrectionary anarchist known as "Mr. Robot", played by Christian Slater, to join a group of hacktivists called "fsociety". The group aims to destroy all debt records by encrypting the financial data of E Corp, the largest conglomerate in the world.
The pilot premiered via online and video on demand services on May 27, 2015. In addition to Malek and Slater, the series stars an ensemble cast featuring Carly Chaikin, Portia Doubleday, Martin Wallström, Michael Cristofer, Stephanie Corneliussen, Grace Gummer, BD Wong, Bobby Cannavale, Elliot Villar, and Ashlie Atkinson. The first season debuted on USA Network on June 24, 2015; the second season premiered on July 13, 2016; and the third season premiered on October 11, 2017. The fourth and final season premiered on October 6, 2019, and concluded on December 22, 2019.
Mr. Robot received critical acclaim, particularly for the performances of Malek and Slater, its story and visual presentation and Mac Quayle's musical score. The series has gained a cult following. Esmail has received praise for his direction of the series, having directed three episodes in the first season before serving as the sole director for the remainder of the show. The show received [|numerous accolades], including two Golden Globe Awards, three Primetime Emmy Awards, and a Peabody Award.

Premise

The series follows Elliot Alderson, a young man living in New York City, who works at the cybersecurity company Allsafe as a cybersecurity engineer. Constantly struggling with social anxiety, dissociative identity disorder, clinical depression and drug abuse, Elliot's thought process seems heavily influenced by paranoia and delusion. He connects with people by hacking them, which often leads him to act as a cyber-vigilante. He is recruited by a mysterious insurrectionary anarchist known as Mr. Robot and joins his team of hacktivists known as fsociety. One of their primary missions is to cancel all consumer debt by encrypting all the data of one of the largest corporations in the world, E Corp, which also happens to be Allsafe's biggest client.
The series is described as a techno-thriller and psychological thriller.

Cast and characters

Main

  • Rami Malek as Elliot Alderson, a senior cybersecurity engineer at Allsafe Cybersecurity and a vigilante hacker. He has dissociative identity disorder and deals with other mental illnesses such as clinical depression and severe anxiety, which are partly responsible for his antisocial behavior and drug use. Elliot's hacker nickname is "Sam Sepiol" or "samsepi0l". Elliot as a child is portrayed by Aidan Liebman, Alex Bento, and Evan Whitten.
  • Carly Chaikin as Darlene Alderson, Elliot's younger sister, a malware coder and one of the fsociety hackers
  • Portia Doubleday as Angela Moss, Elliot's childhood friend and a fellow employee at Allsafe and later a PR Manager for E Corp. Mabel Tyler portrays a young Angela.
  • Martin Wallström as Tyrell Wellick, originally the ambitious Senior Vice President of Technology at E Corp and later part of fsociety
  • Christian Slater as Mr. Robot, an insurrectionary anarchist who recruits Elliot into an underground hacker group called fsociety and Edward Alderson, Elliot's father
  • Michael Cristofer as Phillip Price, the CEO of E Corp
  • Stephanie Corneliussen as Joanna Wellick, Tyrell's wife.
  • Grace Gummer as Dominique "Dom" DiPierro, an FBI field agent investigating the E Corp hack
  • BD Wong as Whiterose, a trans woman, cyber-terrorist and leader of the Dark Army who is also China's Minister of State Security under her birth name, Zhi Zhang. A younger version of Whiterose was portrayed by Ross Kurt Le.
  • Bobby Cannavale as Irving, a car salesman who is a Dark Army fixer.
  • Elliot Villar as Fernando Vera, Shayla's drug supplier and Elliot's only supply of suboxone who has a unique dangerous philosophy and is obsessed with Shayla and later Elliot
  • Ashlie Atkinson as Janice, a chatty taxidermist and a Dark Army fixer with a peculiar sense of humor.

    Recurring

  • Gloria Reuben as Dr. Krista Gordon, Elliot's therapist
  • Michel Gill as Gideon Goddard, the CEO of Allsafe Security.
  • Ben Rappaport as Ollie Parker, Angela's ex-boyfriend and an employee at Allsafe.
  • Aaron Takahashi as Lloyd Chong, Elliot's coworker at Allsafe
  • Frankie Shaw as Shayla Nico, Elliot's drug dealer, next door neighbor and former lover
  • Ron Cephas Jones as Leslie Romero, a member of fsociety.
  • Sunita Mani as Shama "Trenton" Biswas, a member of fsociety.
  • Azhar Khan as Sunil "Mobley" Markesh, a member of fsociety and Bank of E employee.
  • Bruce Altman as Terry Colby, a former CTO of E Corp who is framed by fsociety for a hack attack
  • Armand Schultz as Lenny Shannon, Krista's ex-boyfriend and one of Elliot's early hacking targets
  • Michael Drayer as Francis "Cisco" Shaw, Darlene's ex-boyfriend who was the U.S. liaison to the Chinese hacker group Dark Army.
  • Brian Stokes Mitchell as Scott Knowles, the CTO of E Corp following Colby's arrest
  • Jeremy Holm as Donald "Mr. Sutherland" Hoffman, a fixer under Tyrell and Joanna Wellick.
  • Sakina Jaffrey as Antara Nayar, Angela's lawyer.
  • Don Sparks as Donald Moss, Angela's adopted father.
  • Michele Hicks as Sharon Knowles, Scott's wife.
  • Vaishnavi Sharma as Magda Alderson, Elliot's abusive mother
  • Rick Gonzalez as Isaac Vera, Fernando Vera's younger brother.
  • Nadia Gan as Elizabeth, Tyrell's assistant.
  • Stephen Lin as The Hamburger Man, Elliot's contact with the Dark Army
  • Joey Badass as Leon, a close friend of Elliot and an inmate who is obsessed with sitcoms, as well as an agent for the Dark Army, he is responsible for Elliot's safety
  • Bernadette Quigley as the chaplain who hosts a prayer group attended by Elliot
  • Sandrine Holt as Susan Jacobs, an E Corp General Counsel known as Madame Executioner
  • Anthony Jennings as Vincent, a fsociety member who was given orders by Darlene.
  • Erik Jensen as Frank Cody, a conspiracy theorist and a talk show host.
  • Chris Conroy as Derek, Joanna's secret lover who works as a bartender and a DJ.
  • Craig Robinson as Ray Heyworth, a prison warden who secretly runs a Tor routed website involving human trafficking, drugs and weapons.
  • Michael Maize as "Lone Star" Lockwood, a Texas native and an off-balanced prison guard and associate of Ray.
  • Omar Metwally as Ernesto Santiago, Dom's superior at the FBI who also works for the Dark Army to protect Tyrell Wellick.
  • Grant Chang as Grant, Whiterose's assistant and lover.
  • Luke Robertson as RT, Ray's former system admin.
  • Rizwan Manji as Norm Gill, Dom's new partner working with her to investigate the 5/9 hack.
  • Ramy Youssef as Samar Swailem, Elliot's coworker at E Corp
  • Christine M. Campbell as Janet Robinson, a high-level manager at E Corp
  • Kathryn Danielle as Bobbi, the HR manager at E Corp
  • Josh Mostel as Bo, Elliot's landlord
  • Jing Xu as Wang Shu, Whiterose's assistant.
  • Jake Busey as Freddy Lomax, a lawyer who had ties with the Dark Army.
  • Dominik García as Olivia Cortez, an employee for Cyprus National Bank.
  • Alex Morf as Deegan Maguire, an Irish criminal.
  • Young M.A as Peanuts, Fernando Vera's loyal henchman.
  • Jahneer E. Williams as Javi, Fernando Vera's second loyal henchman.

    Production

Conception and development

Sam Esmail, the show's creator and showrunner, is the credited writer on the vast majority of the episodes. In an interview, Esmail shared that he is fascinated by hacker culture and wanted to make a film about it for around 15 years. In the production, Esmail consulted experts to give a realistic picture of hacking activities. Another inspiration for Esmail, who is of Egyptian descent, was the 2011 Arab Spring, mainly the Egyptian Revolution, where young people who were angry at society used social media to bring about a change. He has said that Elliot is a "thinly-veiled version" of himself.
Esmail had originally intended Mr. Robot to be a feature film, with the end of the first act being someone finding out that he had a mental disorder while enacting a greater scheme. However, midway through writing the first act, he found that the script had expanded considerably, and that it had become better-suited for a television show. He removed 20 of around 89 pages of the script then written, and used it as the pilot for the series, and what was to have been the end of the first act became the finale of the first season. Esmail took the script to film and television production company Anonymous Content to see if it could be developed into a television series, which was then picked up by USA Network. USA gave a pilot order to Mr. Robot in July 2014. After an exhaustive search to cast the lead role, it was announced in September 2014 that Rami Malek had been cast as Elliot; the remainder of the roles in the pilot were cast later in September and October.
USA picked it up to series with a 10-episode order in December 2014. Production began in New York on April 13, 2015. The pilot premiered on multiple online and video on demand services on May 27, 2015, and the series was renewed for a second season before the first season premiered on USA on June 24, 2015. In December 2015, it was announced that Esmail would direct all episodes in the second season. In June 2016, it was announced that the second season's episode order was increased from 10 to 12 episodes. The 12-episode second season premiered on July 13, 2016. On August 16, 2016, USA renewed Mr. Robot for a third season to air in 2017. The third season debuted in October 2017 and consisted of 10 episodes. All episodes were directed by Esmail, just as in the second season. On December 13, 2017, USA renewed Mr. Robot for a fourth season. In August 2018, it was confirmed that the fourth season would be the final season.
Originally, the show planned to dress Elliot in a worn sweatshirt and colorful backpack; however, Malek suggested a black backpack and wore his own B:Scott black hoodie to set. The outfit became the signature look for the character, and the costume designer ordered 20 more of them, despite the item having been discontinued years earlier. To portray the unusual, often confused worldview of lead character Elliot Alderson, Franklin Peterson, who edited three Mr. Robot episodes in the first season and six in the second season, used creative editing styles that included jump cuts, varied lengths of takes and shuffling scenes around within an episode and sometimes even between episodes. Esmail encouraged the experimentation as Peterson and his team explored the personality of each character in the editing suite, finding creative ways to tell their stories and maintain their humanity.