A social robot (1300, 1400), comprising: an electronic substrate holding one or more processors coupled to a memory and to at least one circuit for driving components of the robot; a face component connected to the at least one circuit, the face component comprising at least two human-recognizable expressive features controlled by the one or more processors and selected from: a configurable brow, at least one configurable eye, and a configurable mouth; a movable head component coupled to the face component and connected to the at least one circuit; an audio output transducer coupled to the at least one circuit; and a torso component coupled to the movable head component via a neck mechanism controlled by the one or more processors, the neck mechanism permitting rotation of the movable head component relative to the torso component, wherein the memory holds instructions, that when executed by the one or more processors, causes the social robot to control social responses of the social robot to environmental stimuli, based in part on a set of quantitative personality trait values stored in the memory, whereby behavior of the social robot is consistent with a personality of a source character expressed by a prior character portrayal in a cinematic or video program and wherein each of the quantitative personality trait values represents a score of the prior character portrayal against a scale that measures the each of the personality trait values for corresponding ones of stimulus-response pairs applicable to the prior character portrayal in the cinematic or video program, characterised in that the one or more processor is further configured to apply a filter to the stimulus-response pairs, wherein, when applied, the filter limits the social response of the social robot to a subset of possible social responses based on context in which the stimulus-response events occur. an electronic substrate holding one or more processors coupled to a memory and to at least one circuit for driving components of the robot; a face component connected to the at least one circuit, the face component comprising at least two human-recognizable expressive features controlled by the one or more processors and selected from: a configurable brow, at least one configurable eye, and a configurable mouth; a movable head component coupled to the face component and connected to the at least one circuit; an audio output transducer coupled to the at least one circuit; and a torso component coupled to the movable head component via a neck mechanism controlled by the one or more processors, the neck mechanism permitting rotation of the movable head component relative to the torso component, wherein the memory holds instructions, that when executed by the one or more processors, causes the social robot to control social responses of the social robot to environmental stimuli, based in part on a set of quantitative personality trait values stored in the memory, whereby behavior of the social robot is consistent with a personality of a source character expressed by a prior character portrayal in a cinematic or video program and wherein each of the quantitative personality trait values represents a score of the prior character portrayal against a scale that measures the each of the personality trait values for corresponding ones of stimulus-response pairs applicable to the prior character portrayal in the cinematic or video program, characterised in that the one or more processor is further configured to apply a filter to the stimulus-response pairs, wherein, when applied, the filter limits the social response of the social robot to a subset of possible social responses based on context in which the stimulus-response events occur.