Humans (TV series)

Premise

Cast

Main

Introduced in series 1

• Emily Berrington as Niska Elster, 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.
• 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.
• 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 Hawkins / Mia Elster, 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.
• 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 Elster, 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.
• 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 Elster, Leo Elster's conscious synth 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.
• 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.
• Theo Stevenson as Toby Hawkins, Laura and Joe's teenage son, who is attracted to, and becomes 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.
• * Tudor also portrays V, an artificial intelligence developed by Athena Morrow based on her deceased daughter Virginia.
• 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.
• Manpreet Bachu as Harun Khan, a friend of Mattie, who helps her hack the synths.

  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 Max, 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.
• Thusitha Jayasundera as Neha Patel, a government lawyer with initially a hostile stance towards the synth cause.
• 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
• Bella Dayne as Astrid, a waitress who becomes romantically involved with Niska
• Ritu Arya as Flash, a house synth who, like Hester, becomes self-aware from the consciousness program.
• 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
• Matthew Marsh as Lord Dryden

  Episodes

Production

Development

Filming

Broadcast and release