Films: 'The second I met Chris Pratt, it was as if we were already best friends'

IT’S not too hard to imagine a world where sentient robots are a part of society. Set in a retro-futuristic alternate universe against a 1990s backdrop, The Electric State, from Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame directors the Russo brothers, shows a world in which anthropomorphic robots stylised like mascots and cartoon characters were once intertwined with humanity, but now live in exile in the American desert.

The story follows Michelle, an orphaned teenager played by Stranger Things star Millie Bobby Brown, who believes her beloved, nerdy little brother was also killed when she lost her parents. However, when she is visited by sweet, mysterious robot Cosmo, it appears that the droid is being controlled by her brother Christopher. Could Christopher still be alive? And can Michelle find him and learn more about the sinister forces behind his disappearance?

Along the way, she meets Keats, a low-rent smuggler played by Guardians of the Galaxy’s Chris Pratt, and his wisecracking robot sidekick Herman, voiced by Captain America actor Anthony Mackie, forming a reluctant alliance that becomes a friendship — both on screen and off.

“Honestly, that just happened naturally. I can’t force anything,” says Millie Bobby Brown, 21, of her camaraderie with co-star Pratt.

“I am who I am, I have a lot of energy and sometimes I’ll tone myself down when I meet my new co-stars, but the second I met Chris, he acted as if he’d known me my whole life.

“I went home that night and I saying to my husband that it was as if Chris and I were already best friends.”

The sentiment is shared by Pratt, whose career has involved several intense, demanding shoots for films such as Guardians of the Galaxy and Jurassic World.

“You’re put into the crucible of a collaborative creative process where you’re grinding out 15-hour days, and it accelerates the bond-building with everyone. You make relationships just like in a summer camp — at the end of it, you think, ‘I’m never going to forget this. This was the greatest summer of my life. We’re best friends forever’,” says the 45-year-old actor.

“Then, you go back to your life and it feels a little bit like a dream.”

Graphic novel fans will recognise the characters and story in the Russos’ The Electric State, since the film is loosely based on the illustrated novel of the same name by Simon Stalenhag.

Anthony Russo says that he and his brother were inspired by the themes in the book, and wanted to adapt the story for the screen in a fresh way.

“The thing that inspired us most were the themes of the graphic novel, the themes of humanity’s relationship to technology... And we just felt it was so timely,” says the director, 55.

“It seems like, perhaps more than ever, our relationship to technology has become extremely complicated. It’s present in our lives. It’s almost consuming our lives in some ways. So we thought it was a very important story to tell now.

“We also loved, in the book, the idea of a sister having been separated from her family by war, still believing her brother is still alive, and looking for him in the aftermath of that war. [It] seemed like a very powerful, emotional, relatable story for us.”

The story is told against a futuristic yet nostalgic setting, an alternative 1990s which blends the hallmarks of the era with sci-fi iconography.

Its star, Brown, rose to fame playing Eleven in Netflix sci-fi series Stranger Things, the final season of which will be released later this year, a series that is set in 1980s America. As such, she is no stranger to adapting to nostalgic settings, and she says she loved getting a taste of the 1990s in The Electric State.

“I’m not actually used to doing modern or contemporary roles, which is funny,” she says.

“But I love anything to do with the nineties. When I was thinking about my make-up for the film, I found a lip liner that was called ‘1994’. It was this beautiful dusty brown and I knew instantly that it was Michelle’s lip liner.

“I love the make-up, I love the hair, I love the style. I’m obsessed.”

Pratt, who was a teenager himself in the nineties, also enjoyed leaning into the era’s nostalgic charm while developing his character.

“With Keats, I was able to mine many of the pop culture references of my own childhood,” he says.

“I based him loosely on a guy named Kenny who was my neighbour growing up. He was this dude who had long blonde hair and used to jam on his guitar, jumping on a mini trampoline in zebra-striped stretch pants like David Lee Roth. He was way too old to be friends with kids, but he’d take us out and we’d have water balloon fights — he was the coolest dude in the world.”

The Electric State, while being a sci-fi action flick with a cast of robots, is rich with humanity and soul. It was important to the Russo brothers, Anthony and Joe, that the story had a personal narrative running through it.

“All of our filmmaking, we really approach as an exploration of character,” says Anthony.

“Especially when you’re telling vast stories that have the fate of the world at stake, it’s extremely important to ground that in a very personal narrative, about a single human being and about the inner life of a single human being.

“So I think that’s how we get away with telling these stories that are sort of high adventure, by making them very, very personal at the same time.”

By exploring comedic improvisation, The Electric State brings a naturalistic humour, particularly in dialogue between Keats and his robot Herman.

“A lot of the banter in our scenes came from Joe saying crazy stuff and it turning into something that wasn’t on the page,” says Pratt. “It was absolute freaking chaos.”

Brown adds: “Up until now I didn’t really improv, so coming onto a set where I don’t know what Chris is going to say and I don’t know where he’s going to take the scene was such a learning curve.

“But it was actually pretty great, because it helped me learn how to reciprocate and match his energy. I instead of laughing when he would change up a line, which is what I’d usually do, I actually responded, and it taught me a lot as an actor.”

‘The Electric State’ is streaming now on Netflix.