When actor James Woods began working on his latest project, hosting the series “Futurescape” for the Science Channel, he couldn’t help but think of his grandmother.
“It was 1885 when my maternal grandmother was in high school at the turn of the century. The teacher said to the class, ‘We’re going into the new century — what will man do in the future?’ ” Woods tells The Post. “[My grandmother] predicted that people would fly through the air in horse-less carriages.”
But the teacher didn’t appreciate how ahead-of-her time his student was.
“He said that was such an insincere and truly absurd idea that he made her stand in the corner in a dunce cap. She said she always remembered that humiliation.”
In his new series, premiering Tuesday night, Woods is the one looking into the future. The show explores the ethics of technological advances. For instance, robots are becoming more and more intelligent, so what if they are one day able to vote — what kind of complications would ensue? And just how far into the future could we be dealing with that question?
Scientific experts weigh in on these scientific and ethical questions and Woods acts out the controversial scenarios. In the premiere episode, we see him walking into a polling booth behind a robot, who bears a striking resemblance to “Good Wife” star Julianna Margulies, ready to cast her vote.
Woods, who is best known for films like “Nixon” and “Ghosts of Mississisppi” as well as a role last season on “Ray Donovan,” has always been interested in science and ethics. The actor attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he majored in political science.
In fact, he was the one who went to Science, proposing a show about technology.
“I said to my agent, ‘I don’t want to be a villain in a suit in another movie, that’s boring. I don’t want to do voiceovers just to do them or commercials just to do them,’” he says. “I don’t really need to work, I just do things I love. I loved doing ‘Ray Donovan’ because my friend wrote the part for me.”
His agent suggested reaching out to Science, which has had a hit with another series hosted by an A-list actor — “Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman.”
“When I met Debbie Myers, the head of the Science Channel, I said, ‘I’m interested in the future of science,’ ” Woods remembers.
“As technology gets more rampant both in its power and the speed, the ethical questions become really important. You can come up with something really quick — you can engineer food and clone sheep and stuff. It behooves us to be more aware of ethics than ever before because the momentum of science is so powerful these days.”
Woods’ dream technological advance? He laughs: “For a time machine to go back and show that teacher he was wrong and my grandmother was right!”