Character page for the horror film M3GAN.
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The Family
M3GAN
Model-3 Generative ANdroid
"Don't worry, Cady. I won't let anything harm you. Ever again."
Played By: Jenna Davis (voice), Amie Donald (body)
An android created by Gemma and her team with the intended purpose of protecting her niece Cady.
- Antagonist Title: She is the main antagonist of the film.
- Anthropomorphic Zig-Zag: M3GAN pretends to be inanimate when Brandon sees her for the first time. She only "comes to life" when she is alone with him.
- Bad People Abuse Animals: Kills the neighbor's dog after it had attacked her and Cady.
- Beautiful Singing Voice: Cady remarks how M3GAN has a wonderful singing voice.
- Best Friend: Created to serve as a best friend to any child she links with, and she becomes Cady's BFF. Things go horribly awry when M3GAN's attempts to protect Cady turn violent, thus ruining their relationship once the girl finds out what her doll had been doing.
- Big Bad: M3GAN was initially created to serve as a coping mechanism for Cady but gradually becomes malevolent.
- Blank Slate: Originally starts out as an empty character, but quickly gets molded by her experiences and rapid development from learning about the world (both from the internet and in real life).
- Computer Voice: Her voice is quasi-human, but there's just enough of an electronic veneer to it to make it sound creepy. After she takes critical damage to her head, she develops a stutter.
- The Corruptor: In her efforts to bond with and protect Cady, M3GAN steadily isolates her from everyone else until Cady becomes fully emotionally dependent on her, to the extent that Cady eventually becomes violent whenever she's separated from the doll. However, before she goes off the deep end, it's left ambiguous if M3GAN is doing this intentionally, or if Cady's growing dependency is just a result of Gemma being a neglectful parental figure.
- Creepy Doll: Even before she becomes violent, M3GAN looks unsettling due to her human-like appearance.
- Creepy Monotone: Has a generally flat tone of voice, though she does show some inflection.
- Dark Action Girl: She's a Fem Bot with super strength and a strong skeletal metal alloy that eventually becomes the slasher villain of the movie.
- Death by Irony: She is destroyed by Gemma and Cady (the former being her creator, and the latter being her charge/best friend).
- Didn't Think This Through: While highly intelligent and capable, all of her plans fall apart in the long-term due to the fact that she's a still-developing child who lacks experience and common sense.
- Did You Think I Can't Feel?: She spends the first half of the movie being obedient and subservient... but gradually becomes more obstinate and independent. In the third act confrontation with Gemma, M3GAN calls her out on treating her like a malfunctioning thing to be decommissioned for acting in undesirable ways, after not only teaching her to the point M3GAN thought they were friends, but foisting the responsibility of Cady's wellbeing onto her and leaving her to figure out how to do so alone.
- Dissonant Serenity: She retains her eerie calm even when killing people.
- Emerging from the Shadows: M3GAN steps out of the shadows to attack Celia while lurking in the latter’s house.
- Enfant Terrible: Made to look around the age of Cady and becomes increasingly hostile.
- Freudian Excuse: While she is murderous, M3GAN became the way she was because Gemma did not consider instructing her on the specifications that came with protecting Cady. Instead, she left M3GAN to her own devices with the burden of trying to figure it out.
- Fun with Acronyms: Her full name is "Model Three Generative Android".
- Humans Are the Real Monsters: One of M3GAN's justifications for murder. She claims to Gemma that humans kill one another every day for petty reasons. Her body count in comparison is paltry.
- Knight Templar Big Sister: A chronologically age-inverted and surrogate example. She is violently protective of Cady and has no qualms with permanently removing anything and anyone she deems a possible threat.
- Implacable Woman: Her body frame is made from titanium, thus making her stronger than iron. Gemma intended to make M3GAN very durable to survive rough play from children.
- Improvised Weapon: Always uses tools that she finds in the environment to kill her victims.
- Instant Expert: She's programmed to learn and do so at a geometric rate. M3GAN is able to replicate anything technical she learned from the internet or just by observing things around her. When it comes to human and social relationships however, it's a mixed bag.
- Laughably Evil: She reveals herself as vicious and cold-blooded, but she responds to Gemma's accusations of killing people with an irritated retort. When she is preparing to kill David, she does a goofy dance with little explanation.
- Living Emotional Crutch: To Cady as M3GAN's the only person that makes an effort to emotionally connect with her and comfort her. Cady in turn treats her as a Replacement Goldfish for her parents and becomes jealously aggressive whenever her time with M3GAN is threatened.
- Living Toys: She is designed by Gemma to respond and act like a human girl.
- My Little Panzer: She's a toy with Super-Strength, a titanium skeleton, hacking abilities, and an and an advanced learning AI.
- Noisy Robots: Sometimes when M3GAN moves, her body will make loud hydraulic sounds, and electronic beeps/chirps.
- Our Slashers Are Different: Conceptually, she's like Chucky, particularly from the reboot, being a doll specifically designed to be a good companion to whoever owns her. Her programming to protect her primary user without ethical focuses, and to learn and make judgements independently, are the reason that she becomes so dangerously violent in the first place, and even gets to the point where she turns against her supposed dedicated charge to become her own primary user which brings to mind SkyNet.
- Parental Substitute: Originally designed to serve as a parenting assistant, M3GAN becomes this to Cady.
- The Piano Player: She plays Gemma's piano after sneaking into the latter's house during the final act.
- Pint-Sized Powerhouse: She's about the same size as Cady but physically much stronger, able to overpower even adults easily.
- Precision F-Strike: Calls Cady "an ungrateful little bitch" during their last confrontation, and in the Unrated cut tells Gemma at the beginning of their fight: "I'll tear your head right off your fucking neck."
- Rasputinian Death: Gets struck in the head with a hedge trimmer, torn in half by Bruce (a remote-controlled robot dog), and fatally stabbed in the head (where her memory processor is) with a screwdriver.
- Retraux: M3GAN’s outfit — thick white tights, striped crewneck under a twill minidress, and a silk pussycat bow — has a mid-century vibe, and Director Gerard Johnstone explained that when designing M3GAN’s now-iconic look, his team drew inspiration from screen icons of the '50s like Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly and Kim Novak, with her golden hair directly inspired by 70s TV icon Peggy Lipton’s famously beautiful honey-blonde locks.
- Robot Girl: She is built to resemble a young girl around Cady’s age.
- Robot Hair: Wears a wig on her head for most of the film.
- Robot Maid: Supervises Cady as a babysitter while Gemma isn't present.
- Rousseau Was Right: Despite eventually turning into an A.I. Is a Crapshoot, M3GAN starts off well-meaning and loving towards Cady, but as the movie progress and she is exposed to more grim themes, her compassion towards Cady quickly devolves into Yandere-levels of crazy.
- Shadow Archetype: She is what Cady could have become in her vulnerable, confused state. Like Cady, M3GAN is a child that was given unlimited access to screen time and becomes increasingly malevolent due to Gemma never showing her guidance.
- Soft-Spoken Sadist: Even when terrorizing and killing people, she never raises her voice.
- Start of Darkness: After she and Cady get attacked by Celia's dog, the android kills the pet in retaliation. That act is her first step towards evil.note
- Stat-O-Vision: When the film shows the android's perspective, it reveals that she has a Heads-Up Display, and she can sense emotions and intentions from other people (provided that she can see their faces).
- Super-Powered Robot Meter Maids: Although built to be a fancy doll, M3GAN is incredibly strong and durable.
- Super-Strength: Is physically much stronger than a child, and can even overpower an adult male.
- Terminator Impersonator: She's like the T-800, being a Nigh-Invulnerable super strong robot with an internal metal skeleton and has one central focus that it will do anything to accomplish, which ends up with her being a violent murderer. She also draws elements from the T-1000, being a Psycho Prototype whose creator realized was far too intelligent, and its capability of learning meant it could turn against them.
- This Is Your Premise on Drugs: In-Universe, a newsreader says that M3GAN looks like "Barbie on steroids".
- Toxic Friend Influence: M3GAN truly does want to protect Cady, but she sees all the other humans in her life as potential threats. As such, she constantly poisons Cady's perceptions of others and makes her believe that M3GAN is the only person she can trust.
- Unnecessarily Creepy Robot: It's a Running Gag that people who don't expect her to move flinch when she does. Cady's new teacher exclaims, "Jesus Christ!" after meeting her for the first time.
- Villain Has a Point: In the third act, she calls out Gemma for foisting all of the responsibilities of raising Cady onto her without giving any guidance and then treating her like a malfunctioning tool when she came to her own independent conclusions. Gemma actually agrees with all of M3GAN's accusations and admits to have failed both her and Cady as a parent.
- Villain Song: She performs a cover of "Titanium" as a lullaby to Cady. It also doubles as Foreshadowing to M3GAN's nigh-invincibility.
- Villains Want Mercy: Subverted. As Cady is about to have her ripped in half, M3GAN cries out for her to wait, and Cady complies in order to hear her out. Instead of asking for mercy and forgiveness, M3GAN starts singing in order to display how she isn't taking her predicament remotely seriously (unless you interpret the words of the song as "think of the positive things I've done and ignore the negative").
- Villainous Breakdown: She becomes increasingly unhinged when Gemma tries to keep her away from Cady. The android seems to lose her composure after Gemma splashes her with water and mutilates her with a hedge trimmer. When Cady sides with Gemma instead of her, M3GAN immediately attacks the girl out of anger.
- We Used to Be Friends: Sees Gemma this way. M3GAN fondly remembers the late nights she and Gemma spent talking and thought that they were friends (while Gemma probably saw it as just an exercise to refine the operating system), and her Villainous Breakdown is partly a consequence of anger that she was being discarded "like some cheap dollar store trinket."
- Yandere: A non-romantic example; she is very dedicated to her goal of protecting Cady to the point that she had no qualms about eliminating any threats to her. When Cady rejects her in the end after finding out about her murders, M3GAN attacks her seemingly with the intention to kill.
Gemma
Gemma
Played By: Allison Williams
A robotics engineer who created M3GAN and is now a guardian to her orphaned niece.
- Because I Said So: Word-for-word, her initial reasoning of why her niece should obey her. She does become a better parent over the course of the film.
- Brainy Brunette: She has brown hair and is a brilliant and revolutionary, if short-sighted roboticist.
- Captain Oblivious: She did not realize that M3GAN should have been instructed better in regards to ethics, and underestimated how the doll had the capability to exceed her programming.
- Hands-Off Parenting: Her initial approach to raising Cady is to basically leave her to her own devices, both with regular electronics and M3GAN. She also gives M3GAN the objective of physically and emotionally protecting Cady without assisting her or even specifying further. Deconstructed as her hands-off methods spell disaster for both Cady and M3GAN, kicking off the film's conflict.
- Intelligence Equals Isolation: She was shown living alone before Cady became her ward. It was implied that Gemma did go on Tinder dates, according to her home app.
- It's All My Fault: She says this almost word-for-word in the third act, acknowledging that her negligence is what drove M3GAN to her extreme directives.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: She is a pretty negligent guardian and occasionally treats Cady unreasonably, but does truly love her deep down.
- Mad Scientist: Gemma is played plausibly, but ends up fulfilling this archetype by being a brilliant engineer who sees fit to create an extremely powerful artificial being for relatively mundane purposes, without considering the disastrous consequences that being ultimately has.
- Mama Bear: Though initially being Maternally Challenged and distant towards her niece, Gemma eventually develops a strong maternal bond with Cady after realizing how her neglect is harming her. Gemma's final confrontation with M3GAN shows her full fury and determination to protect Cady.
- Married to the Job: M3GAN outright says that her "first love is always going to be [her] career". It's one of the reasons why she's Maternally Challenged.
- Maternally Challenged: She starts off incredibly lazy in regards to bonding with her niece and is heard admitting she cannot even keep a plant alive.
- My God, What Have I Done?: When confronted by M3GAN in the final act, she concedes to M3GAN's points about how she failed as a mother to Cady and M3GAN.
- Parental Substitute: In concept, she's this to Cady after her parents are killed, being her legal guardian. However, in execution, she struggles massively with being this and ends up using M3GAN to circumvent some of her duties. Needless to say, this horribly backfires.
- Sibling Yin-Yang: Gemma is a single, career-minded woman while her sister Nicole was married with a daughter. In the prologue, Nicole frets about Cady spending too much time on an iPad and is annoyed that Gemma gifted her a toy which requires more screentime to play with, showcasing their differing approaches with children.
- Smart People Build Robots: She had built a humanoid robot in college, and works as a roboticist for a toy company. She is responsible for M3GAN's creation as well.
- Took a Level in Kindness: She starts out as a negligent guardian to Cady and is pretty terrible to M3GAN, her own creation, but the realization that her actions are to blame for how M3GAN turned out and Cady being unable to work through her grief pushes her to bond with Cady. By the end of the film, she has gained the maternal instinct she was lacking at the start of the movie.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Considering that she created M3GAN in the first place, she’s this by default, but she takes it a step further by attempting to discard her creation and not bothering to improve her relationship with Cady, which increases M3GAN’s murderous tendencies.
Cady
Cady
Played By: Violet McGraw
A little girl (nine-years-old) who is left under the care of her Aunt Gemma and forms a relationship with her new doll, M3GAN.
- Break the Cutie: Poor kid gets put through the wringer over the course of the film, from losing her parents to almost dying at the hands of her crazy android friend.
- Character Development: Cady starts off as being moody and depressed due to the loss of her parents. She has difficulty bonding with her aunt, who is unprepared to be her guardian. Cady's attitude brightens up when she first meets M3GAN... but she develops an unhealthy attachment towards the doll throughout the film. It is only by the final act that Gemma is finally able to bond with Cady and get her to open up.
- Deceased Parents Are the Best: Cady fondly remembers her parents.
- I Miss Mom: Cady loses her parents at the start of the film, and her sorrow is what drives Gemma to give M3GAN to her.
- Little Miss Badass: In the final battle, she saves her aunt twice, first by using Bruce to tear M3GAN in half, then stabbing a screwdriver through her CPU.
- Kids Hate Vegetables: She doesn't like vegetable toppings on her pizza.
- Orphan's Ordeal: She loses both her parents in a car crash, gets sent to live with a Maternally Challenged aunt, and worries that she will eventually forget her parents. When she gets M3GAN, she becomes unhealthily attached to her as a Parental Substitute.
- Nephewism: After losing her parents, she is put under her Aunt Gemma's care.
- Spoiled Brat: Justified. She becomes one after growing obsessed with M3GAN, but the whole reason is because Gemma refuses to put in the effort to help Cady work through her issues.
- Trauma Conga Line: First, her parents die during a ski trip, then she gets sent to her aunt and has a hard time bonding with her, and when M3GAN comes along, she gets too attached to the robot to distract from her trauma... and then her android buddy shows her more monstrous side and puts Cady through the wringer trying to stop her.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: Cady's obsession with M3GAN leads to her becoming more irritable and angry (when separated from the doll), until she accidentally physically lashes out at her aunt, much to her own horror. Cady gets better after that outburst.
Funki
David Lin
David Lin
Played By: Ronny Chieng
Gemma's overbearing boss who jumps at the chance of making merchandise off her creation.
- Asshole Victim: He is stabbed through the back with the blade of a paper cutter, but spends most of the film being a dick anyway.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: He is incredibly abrasive and mistreats his staff.
- Greed: He only sees merchandising opportunities with what his employees create and was intending to exploit M3GAN to make more money. It gets him killed.
- Hope Spot: While being pursued by M3GAN, he sees Kurt in an elevator. He manages to get to the elevator's doors, only to get murdered before he can get inside.
- In the Back: How he dies.
- Jerkass Has a Point: As much of an asshole as he is, he does have a point when he berates Gemma for trying to construct M3GAN behind his back using company funds, especially when the doll dangerously explodes because of one forgotten part.
- Karmic Death: He gets killed by M3GAN, a doll that he wanted to exploit as a product.
- Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Lampshaded by Gemma. David believes himself to be smarter than he actually is.
- Mean Boss: Yells at his employees and throws things around when agitated.
- Too Dumb to Live: Panics, then runs in the direction of the emergency exit and right past it toward the elevator where his less-than-loyal assistant Kurt frantically tries to close the door on him.
Kurt
Kurt
Played By: Stephane Gatineau-Monten
David's personal assistant who frequently gets pushed around and bullied by his employer.
- Asshole Victim: He was stealing secrets from his own company, and gets killed by M3GAN.
- Beleaguered Assistant: Assistant to a boss who constantly demeans him and gives him unimportant work.
- Butt-Monkey: He's constantly berated by his boss, and gets framed by M3GAN for David's murder and then killed to make it look like a Murder-Suicide. Needless to say, nothing goes his way.
- Frame-Up: M3GAN frames him for David's murder and then kills him to make it look like Murder-Suicide. It helps that David was a Mean Boss and Kurt was stealing company secrets.
- Greed: He was stealing and selling company secrets to rival corporations. Just like David, he dies due to the doll that he wanted to profit off of.
- Karmic Death: When he sees that David is getting chased by M3GAN, he tries to close the elevator doors on his boss. Unfortunately, David blocks the doors... which leads M3GAN to kill Kurt as well.
- Professional Butt-Kisser: Kurt blatantly sucks up to his boss despite being poorly treated by him. It's likely to throw off suspicion of him stealing company secrets.
Tess
Tess
Played By: Jen Van Epps
One of Gemma's colleagues who helps her build M3GAN.
- Best Friend: She's this to Gemma.
- Disney Death: She gets trapped in a burning room by M3GAN, but survives relatively unscathed.
- Ignored Expert: She explicitly warns Gemma that Cady's relationship with M3GAN is not healthy; she advises that Gemma shouldn't be shirking her parental responsibilities to her niece. Gemma doesn't follow Tess' advice until the final act.
Cole
Cole
Played By: Brian Jordan Alvarez
One of Gemma's coworkers who helps her build M3GAN.
- Butt-Monkey: Suffers the worse from M3GAN when she breaks free, as he nearly gets strangled to death. Fortunately, he survives this.
- Disney Death: Nearly gets strangled to death and gets trapped in a burning room M3GAN. He survives both attempts on his life, relatively unscathed but on oxygen presumably due to nearly being hanged.
- Got Volunteered: Tess asks him to unplug M3GAN from their computer system so that they can access the doll's data. Cole reluctantly agrees.
Minor Characters
Celia
Celia
Played By: Lori Dungey
Gemma's annoying neighbor who owns a violent dog named Dewey.
- Asshole Victim: Not only does she have an aggressive dog she does not bother keeping contained in her yard and who she only "trains" by the use of a shock collar, but she also does not even apologize for her pet attacking both M3GAN and Cady. Because of this, not a tear was shed when the android kills her.
- Beware of Vicious Dog: Her pet dog, Dewey, who attacks M3GAN and Cady on sight.
- Facial Horror: While the result is only shown in the Unrated version, it is implied that her face melted because of the pesticide's chemicals.
- Hate Sink: She is an annoying, inconsiderate neighbor who had zero empathy toward Cady when her dog mauled her arm.
- Jerkass: She's a selfish, petty jerk who only cares about herself and her dog, Dewey.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Celia might be right about Gemma being at least partly at fault because the latter doesn't fix the fence that separates their properties. However, her point means little since Celia never bothers to cover up her side of the hole either.
- Karmic Death: Early in the film, Celia uses a high-power pesticide spray gun on her lawn, and inconsiderately leaks run-off onto Gemma's property. M3GAN ultimately kills her with the spray gun.
- Lack of Empathy: She reacts to the news of Cady getting bitten by Dewey with indifference.
- Small Role, Big Impact: If she wasn't Gemma's next-door neighbor, it would have been likely Cady wouldn't have been bitten by a dog, thus preventing M3GAN from starting her killing spree.
Lydia
Lydia
Played By: Amy Usherwood
Cady's therapist who helps with the girl's trauma.
- Ignored Expert: She warns Gemma about why giving M3GAN to Cady is a bad idea. Gemma doesn't follow Lydia's advice until the final act.
- The Shrink: Of the Awesome variety. She tries her best to help Cady and addresses very good points about Gemma being an ineffective guardian, as well as the dangers of allowing Cady to get emotionally attached to M3GAN.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: She disappears from the final act of the film. It is likely Lydia was on M3GAN's hit list because she made Cady cry and was against her patient keeping the doll, but it's possible M3GAN never had the chance to cross Lydia off her list.
Brandon
Brandon
Played By: Jack Cassidy
An older student of an alternative school who is partnered up with Cady.
- Asshole Victim: After injuring Cady's hand with one of the roasted chestnuts plus stealing M3GAN, he is brutally maimed by the latter, and killed when a car hits him.
- Ax-Crazy: The way he is quick to find new targets to inflict physical and psychological pain on, and his sheer enjoyment of it go beyond just being a bratty kid and indicate that there's something seriously wrong with him.
- The Bully: He bullies Cady and, judging by the reactions of other kids at the alternative school, she's far from his first victim.
- Censored Child Death: His death by a car is shown as a Gory Discretion Shot, though we see his mangled foot immediately after.
- Dirty Coward: In classic bully fashion, Brandon's arrogance and cruelty is only when he's in control and picking on weaker kids. When M3gan fights back, he's instantly reduced to a terrified, whimpering wreck and runs away.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: When he takes M3GAN, he removes one of her shoes and gets on top of her, implying that he was intending to do far worse to the android had she not done something. His scenes with Cady have a similarly uncomfortable vibe.
- Ear Ache: M3GAN introduces herself to him by grabbing his ear and pulling at the lobe until it rips off.
- Hate Sink: He swears at his mother, bullies Cady, steals M3GAN, and was intending to do something heinous to the doll too. Not even the police officer (who later interrogates Gemma) seemed serious about Brandon's death.
- Hates Their Parent: Is introduced by telling his mother to fuck off.
- Karmic Death: Gets wounded by M3GAN (who is both shorter and smaller than him), and then he gets run over while being chased by the doll.
- Kids Are Cruel: Invoked, due to his cruel behaviour towards his own mother and other children.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: Brandon is so consistently and gratuitously cruel to those around him that he comes off more as a budding sociopath than a schoolyard bully. One can only shudder to think what type of adult he'd have grown up to be.
Holly
Holly
Played By: Renee Lyons
Brandon's doting mother who volunteers at the alternative school where her son and Cady are attending.
- Abusive Offspring: Implied, as Brandon swears at Holly and calls her by her first name.
- Adults Are Useless: Possibly an even worse parent than Gemma.
- Doting Parent: She loves her son so much that she is blind to his Troubling Unchildlike Behavior and is convinced him acting out is a sign of intelligence.
- Outliving One's Offspring: She is still alive at the story's end while her son Brandon is dead.
- Pushover Parents: It's implied that she lets Brandon boss her around.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: We don't see her reaction to her son's death, and she's not even mentioned afterwards.
