Downton Abbey’s Dan Stevens finds a new angle on romance in I’m Your Man
Downton Abbey heartthrob Dan Stevens’ new role is equally romantic … as a robot that’s designed to love.
When Matthew Crawley was killed off in a shocking car crash in Downton Abbey, his wife Lady Mary Crawley (Michelle Dockery) and so many viewers were broken-hearted. He seemed like the perfect husband. Now the British actor who played him, Dan Stevens, is Tom, a humanoid robot programmed to be the perfect partner in the romantic comedy I’m Your Man. Those piercing blue eyes are being put to good use once again.
Directed by Maria Schrader (Unorthodox), I’m Your Man, which she co-wrote with her real life partner Jan Schomberg, was the most commercial German film in the selection for the 2021 Berlin Festival program.
It’s lot of fun as Stevens’ newly minted android learns just what women want and need. While women might imagine we could all probably do well with one of those, is it possible to order a machine that will deliver whatever we want? In one scene, Sandra Hueller, from the company that created Tom, advises that flirting is hard to program.
“One of the things that emerges from the story is how human error and our fallibility are factors in making Tom a success,” Stevens, 38, says over Zoom from Los Angeles. “You watch any sort of romantic comedy and there’s this splashing about or getting ice cream on their nose or something. It doesn’t seem to be correct and yet it’s somehow enjoyable for both parties. It’s constantly the question that comes up when I watch the film: what is humanity and isn’t it strange?”
Set in the present day and not in the distant future, like so many sci-fi films, I’m Your Man follows the relationship-averse Alma (German actress Maren Eggert who won Berlin’s sole acting award) as she reluctantly agrees to be part of a test program. Initially, she can’t get her head around it, especially since Tom seems to have some flaws, but those are improved as he calibrates his algorithm and she eventually warms both to the idea and to Tom.
The difference to other artificial intelligence characters – and Stevens had starred as a schizophrenic mutant in three seasons of the highly acclaimed X-Men-related series Legion – is that Tom is kind and peaceful.
“The experience of making Legion and the things that I learned on that show gave me a preparedness for pretty much anything,” Stevens explains. “Literally, every day on set was wildly different and sometimes it was very challenging. Every episode was a new adventure. All the work I’ve done since has given me a sort of presence of mind.
“There was something about Tom and taking each scene with Alma for what it was and not thinking about the grand scheme, but thinking in that moment. Like what does Tom need to be doing to make Alma’s life better, or how can he be a better man for Alma even in little ways? Tom thinks he’s got to play the romantic lover and he goes for that but realises he’s taking the right turn.”
Of course, nobody’s perfect, not even some of the most famous romantic comedy stars. Stevens notes how Schrader was keen to use traits from old romantic comedies. “If you look at some of the comedic performances of Jimmy Stewart and Cary Grant, in particular, they can be sort of robotic at times. So incorporating some of their mannerisms and tics into Tom seemed quite playful and right.”
While it would be nice to have a perfect partner, isn’t it good to have imperfections?
“Well, that’s the human question, isn’t it?” Stevens responds. “I think yes. John Legend sings about loving your imperfections in All of Me. It’s very cheesy, but it’s true, you know. That is sort of what makes us adorable rather than a bit weird and uncanny, which Tom can be at times.”
So what is romance to Stevens? “It’s about creating an artificial reality for somebody else. Instead of a room being empty, I’m filling it with red roses for you. It’s now a totally different space. You take somebody somewhere special that changes their immediate reality. Tom in a sense is programmed to want to do that, to change Alma’s apartment and have that romantic gesture, like the laying of the ridiculous breakfast that he makes.
“But it’s a great question. I mean, it’s the eternal question, isn’t it? But I think we try to answer it. And we use some of the cliched tropes to highlight that.”
British-born Stevens, who was raised by adoptive parents from birth, has been living in the US with his South African wife, jazz singer and singing teacher Susie Hariet, for nine years. They have three children. What does his wife think of him in this role?
“She quite enjoys watching me speak German,” he replies. “It’s a side she doesn’t get to see often.” He also hopes to be a role model for his kids. “I wanted to show my kids that you study in school, you learn a language, and maybe one day it’ll come in useful.”
Stevens is fluent in both German and French.
In terms of speaking German in I’m Your Man, he explains how he studied the language at school and a little bit at Cambridge University, where he majored in English literature. “My parents actually had great friends who lived in Bielefeld, so we used to spend a lot of our holidays in Nordrhein-Westphalen and that’s really where I learned my German. I made a film in Germany 12 years ago, Hilde, about Hildegard Kneff, playing an Englishman who spoke German and this was the first time I’ve been called upon since to wheel it out.
“It was an interesting choice to go for a foreign actor who could perhaps get their mouth around the words, because it brings this extra foreign element to Tom.”
Stevens’ stunning eyes also make the character seem of another world. When I ask if they are his actual eyes, while he concedes that he’s sure the technical department “had fun in the colour room in post-production”, he says he wore no lenses and his eyes are his own. “I mean, my eyes are the one thing I can’t really change very much.”
He likes that I’m Your Man talks a lot about our lives today. “I keep hearing about these robots, particularly in Japan, and I’d love to see one. I’m sure for some people, especially for the elderly, it’s very comforting. What’s so lovely about our film is that there are these giant questions underlying it. One of the things I remember being struck by during filming is that whenever you sign up for anything now, you give your email and you put in a password, and then you’re constantly asked to click a box, ‘I am not a robot’. So now we’re asked to kind of affirm our own humanity.
“But I was thinking, but I am a robot. I try to be a robot, but I’m not a robot. And it was very confusing,” he chuckles.
Stevens’ departure from Downton Abbey and his career-making role as Matthew Crawley after three seasons and the 2012 Christmas special was sudden. The series’ writer Julian Fellowes has said that the actor did not give sufficient notice for a less shocking departure.
Wanting more variety and ultimately fearing he might be typecast as he was being offered roles in War War I trenches, Stevens headed for the US. He was, however, not resistant to playing another romantic lead.
“I try not to be resistant to too many things,” he says. “I think it’s more about when interesting roles come along, really. The challenges of this role as Tom were so many that I wasn’t really thinking about it as another romantic lead. I’m Your Man was actually a really exciting and challenging project.”
Certainly, since leaving Downton Abbey he has starred in high-profile projects, as a murderous army veteran in The Guest, playing the Beast to Emma Watson’s Belle in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast and Charles Dickens in The Man Who Invented Christmas.
A lover of comedy, he recently appeared in an upbeat version of Blithe Spirit alongside Isla Fisher and tickled his funny bone as the trashy Russian singer and babe magnet Alexander Lemtov in Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga, the pet project of Will Ferrell, available on Netflix.
The latest news is that Stevens has taken over the role vacated by Armie Hammer in the series Gaslit, playing former White House counsel John Dean alongside Sean Penn (as John Mitchell) and Julia Roberts (as Martha Mitchell). It’s based on the podcast Slow Burn and focuses on untold stories surrounding the Watergate scandal and is currently filming in Los Angeles.
According to Deadline, “Stevens’ John Dean is a hotshot young lawyer who is climbing the ranks of White House counsel when the Watergate break-in occurs. He finds himself in the centre of a political scandal, realising that he has bound himself to an administration that wants him to take the fall.”
I’m Your Man will screen as part of The German Film Festival nationally, including in Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and Byron Bay. For dates and program, visit germanfilmfestival.com.au