Who Voices Smith in Netflix’s ‘Atlas’ Movie? Meet Gregory James Cohan

Atlas, a new Jennifer Lopez sci-fi fest that began streaming on Netflix today, is all about artificial intelligence. There’s the bad AI robots like Simu Liu, who attack humans and plan world domination. And then there are the good, helpful AI robots—like the AI named “Smith,” who will ultimately help Lopez save the world.

Atlas—directed by Brad Peyton, with a script by Leo Sardarian and Aron Eli Coleite—stars Lopez as Atlas Shepherd, a prickly data analyst who doesn’t trust artificial intelligence. She has a good reason: Evil AI robots have waged war on humanity. Through a series of unfortunate events, Atlas ends up stranded on an alien planet, trapped in a robot suit that is powered by a “good” AI named Smith.

At first, Atlas is very mistrustful of Smith, and refuses to do the “neural link” that would allow human and machine to work seamlessly together. But when she ends up in a tight spot, she agrees to let Smith inside of her mind, and vice versa. Thus begins a beautiful friendship between a sassy human and a sassy robot. But while we definitely know who JLo is, the voice behind her mechanical friend is a mystery. Read on to learn more about the actor who voices Smith in Atlas.

Who voices Smith in Atlas?

Smith the AI bot from Atlas is voiced by Gregory James Cohan. Cohan hasn’t had many lead roles in big projects, but he’s been steadily working as an actor in Hollywood for over a decade, with small guest roles on TV shows like American Horror Stories and Snowfall, as well as small feature film roles, like the recent The American Society of Magical Negroes. But now, with Atlas, he’s landed a big role starring opposite Jennifer Lopez. Or his voice is, at least. Way to go, Greg!

In an interview for the Atlas press notes, director Brad Peyton explained his process for casting the voice of Smith. The way Peyton tells it, Cohan was just a temporary hire at first—but he did such a good job, that he booked himself the permanent gig.

“Initially, we wanted a temporary voice actor to sit in the booth and talk opposite Jen for all the dialogue, just to have some-one present, and then we’d worry about casting later,” Peyton explained. “I got a bunch of tapes and I listened to one, and this guy — Gregory Cohan — actually sounded exactly like how I pictured Smith. So Greg came in, he read the entire movie, and the more we heard him doing Smith, the more we realized he’s perfect for the role.”

Not only did Cohan land the role of Smith’s voice, he also got to briefly appear on-screen in the movie as an actual human. “We ended up not only using Greg for the entire production, and having him be the official voice of Smith, but he also appears physically as the pilot of the DHIIB, the ship that Sterling K. Brown’s character runs,” Peyton explained in the same press notes interview. “He also voices one of the soldiers in the opening of the movie. So, Greg technically has three roles in this movie.”

Now that’s what I call a hustle! Shout out to Gregory James Cohan, the secret MVP of Atlas.