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The actress discusses playing the challenges of playing the enemy AI.

A veteran of sci-fi series like Eureka and Battlestar Galactica, Erica Cerra has played an integral role on The 100 this season as the AI known as Alie (or A.L.I.E.). Now fully taking her place as the season’s main antagonist, Alie has successfully gathered a huge number of followers who have taken the “chip” that puts them under her thrall – and in the last episode managed to move her power source off Earth onto the remnants of the Ark, seemingly making it impossible to stop her.

With The 100 going into the last two episodes of Season 3, I spoke to Cerra about Alie’s point of view and just how safe she is, what it’s like playing a character with seemingly no emotions and more about her experience working on The 100.

IGN: Now that Alie has managed to move her power source to the Ark, does she feel confident -- if confident is the right word for her -- that she’s pretty secure right now?

Cerra: I would think so, yeah. I’m sure she feels that she’s in a safe zone or one step ahead because how are they possibly going to get to her? But there’s also the idea that the other AI is still around, so I don’t know... I would think that she’s kind of maybe taking things one step at a time and just kind of playing her side of the chess board. She’s made her move so we’ll see what happens next.

IGN: She’s an AI and she’s not expressing emotions as we would, but at the same time, we see that she has this concern about this other AI. There are moments that she is expressing that something needs to be done right away. Is it interesting for you to modulate how much is the right amount to show and to have those little nuances with a character like this?

Cerra: From the beginning, I always kind of wanted her emotions to build - to not really

things but understand with cause and effect. With humans, if someone dies, someone is sad. So I wanted her to start to be able to simulate that. I think the idea got a little knocked down because they wanted such a strong difference between the Becca character and the Alie character. But then at the same time, to have a character that is so continuously one note can get boring. So it was something that I played with and no one stopped me. [Laughs] I just kind of kept going. She’s downloaded how many humans’ minds and she’s been around humans for this length of time now so I feel like maybe she’s simulating emotions. You know how if someone goes to England and they hear someone speak in a British accent and it rubs off on them? In my mind, that’s what’s happening. She’s mimicking what she sees on other people’s faces. She sees Jaha with concern so she simulates concern. But that’s where my head was with that. She doesn’t feel. She doesn’t understand what the expression means but she’s simulating the idea, if that makes sense.

IGN: She’s observed how strong Raven is, who has escaped her grasp. Does she see Raven as a worthy adversary, someone to keep an eye on whether she’s under her thrall or not?

Cerra: Yeah, because Raven is really smart, technically, and even sort of in life. She’s very clever, so I think she respects her and she admires her. I never really refer to her with any emotion but she would want her as an ally. So she definitely respects her and would want her on her side.

IGN: Alie much more overtakes someone’s mind than the second AI, which we’re told works in unison with whatever the person already is. Is it hard for Alie to fathom the other AI’s approach, since she feels right to control people?

Cerra: I don’t think it’s about controlling people. Alie’s mind is more simple. Alie was given a program to save humanity and if that means saving two people, one man and one woman, that’s saving humanity. So to her, she just wants to make sure that the human race goes on. As far as the second AI is concerned, she doesn’t understand it. She doesn’t even know what it is. She has ideas of what it is and what it can do and concerns about it. She just knows she wants to get her hands on it so that it doesn’t affect her goal and doesn’t destroy her but as far as the second AI, Alie just doesn’t understand it. She wants to make sure she can get ahold of it. She knows that her creator went off to create this second AI so it must be an upgrade. “Is it an upgrade? Is it something to conquer me?” She just needs to get ahold of it because she feels it belongs to her. She has her fears but she feels like it belongs to her.

(L-R): Paige Turco as Abby, Erica Cerra as Alie, and Isaiah Washington as Jaha in The 100

IGN: In last week’s episode, you were simultaneously appearing in three different scenes. Has it been just a crazy-intense schedule for you making this show, given that it’s usually one group of actors working one day and some working another, but in a case like that episode, you needed to be there for almost all of it?

Cerra: Pretty much. [Laughs] That’s exactly what it was. The last couple of episode that you see, I think my work schedule was definitely upped. I think they were just sort of deciding what to do with Alie as well. “Where do we put her? Who has been chipped?” They had a little sneak of her in all the scenes I think because there’s a sense of her in almost everyone now.

IGN: You had the opportunity to work with pretty much the entire cast - though oddly not speaking to many of them in your scenes. Was that a funny situation?

Cerra: Oh yeah. It was funny to me because I was literally the elephant in the room that no one can talk about. No one can look at me. No one can refer to me in so many scenes. Only one person can see me and it’s just so funny because it’s like every single episode it was, “What are the rules? We can’t look at her. We can’t see her. When she talks we don’t know she’s there?” And then every take there’s always someone like, “Ugh, I looked at her!” And I’m wearing this bright red dress, how am I not going to catch your eye? And then I speak. How are you going to not look at someone when they’re speaking? It was pretty funny. I think the cast had a little bit of a struggle working with me.

IGN: What was it like learning that the episode “Thirteen” was going to center on you playing Becca? Was that an exciting but interesting challenge for you to pretty much create that character in such a spotlight manner, given we’d only seen her briefly beforehand?

Cerra: I didn’t even know I was playing Becca when I got hired. The first episode I came in and they were like, “Oh, you’re also playing this character.” I knew that I wanted them to be different. I wanted one to have true compassion so it would really be specific to each different character. I wanted their mannerisms to be different. I wanted to make sure they were two individuals. I think it was more of a challenge to play Alie from the get go. I’m outgoing and warm and I have a lot of personality and expression. I talk a lot. Playing someone like Alie is a big challenge for me because she’s so minimal. And that was something that I wanted for her because that’s who she should be, but figuring out Alie was way more challenging than Becca. Becca felt like I could go to set and remember words and feel. It was way more natural to play Becca than it was to play Alie. Alie became natural to me once I figured her out and her boundaries and what she could and could not do, then it was very easy to play her but in the beginning it was more of a challenge. Even just small little scenes. You want to make sure she’s interesting. She doesn’t say much so you want to make her compelling in some way and not just a random character that doesn’t speak.

Isaiah Washington as Jaha and Erica Cerra as Alie in The 100

IGN: What was it like to see Lindsey [Morgan] doing her version of you as Alie?

Cerra: What was funny is when we did the rehearsal she did it and I was like “Damn, that was good!” but I guess Jason [Rothenberg] had her watch a couple of the episode and I didn’t know that. And I was like, “How did you do that so quickly?” And she was like “Oh, I was watching a couple of the episodes the night before.” That made way more sense. When we were on set, she was probably a little more self-conscious because I’m standing in front of her and she was like, “Can you read the lines for me?” and I was like, “I don’t even think I need to. I think you should just continue with what you’re doing.” I gave her a couple line readings and mannerisms and it almost messed with her. I was like, “Just go with your instincts. You’re doing a better job just on your own natural visualization, watching or hearing me. Continue doing that.” She did a better job all on her own than with me coaching her. I feel like when someone coaches you, it almost makes you more self-conscious. You’re trying really hard to mimic what they’re doing when it’s better to go with your natural instincts. But she did a great job. I was very proud of her.

IGN: Let me ask you to tease a little more about the final episodes of this season. The description for this week’s episode ominously says “Alie’s master plan comes together.”

Cerra: There’s surprises! There’s death - No surprise there. [Laughs] There’s a pretty spectacular showdown. I think the fans are going to be really excited. It’s a pretty great last two episodes. The finale is fantastic. I think they’re going to be blown away.

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IGN: Lastly, I have to try to ask… How did Alie know about Sinclair dying?

Cerra: Ooooh. how did Alie know? I haven’t been watching. I’m my own worst critic. I feel like there was an answer there. I feel like they told you. Didn’t they?

IGN: Well, the implication is that someone we\'re not aware of was giving her the information but we don’t know who that is, if so.

Cerra: Oh yeah, I’m not going to tell you that! [Laughs] You have to watch it .

Eric Goldman is Executive Editor of IGN TV. You can follow him on Twitter at @TheEricGoldman, IGN at ericgoldman-ign and Facebook at Facebook.com/TheEricGoldman.