Q&A with Actress Millie Bobby Brown, Actor Chris Pratt and Directors Russo Brothers

 

Q : Congratulations on this movie, guys. Let’s lead off with Joe and Anthony. Help us understand this world we’re diving into. What does the audience need to know about the Electric State?

Anthony Russo: So, The Electric State is a big, epic fantasy adventure. It’s set in an alternate version of the 1990s. It reimagines our history as if AI robots existed much earlier than they will. And, there was a war between humanity and these robots, and the movie basically takes place in the aftermath of this war, where a girl who has lost her family in the war, finds out her brother may still be alive.

Anthony Russo: So, The Electric State is a big, epic fantasy adventure. It’s set in an alternate version of the 1990s. It reimagines our history as if AI robots existed much earlier than they will. And, there was a war between humanity and these robots, and the movie basically takes place in the aftermath of this war, where a girl who has lost her family in the war, finds out her brother may still be alive.

And she goes on a journey to potentially find her brother, and she encounters some amazing help along the way. That’s the movie more or less 

Q: Joe, you were saying backstage, this is once you guys see the movie, you can tell from the trailer, this is an ambitious undertaking, you guys don’t ever go easy on yourselves. What compelled you, that earned many years of your life, your career, to dive into this world? What were you excited about?

Joe Russo: I’m exhausted, that’s all I can say. We started this five years ago, it’s been a long journey, but it’s a passion project. We’re very excited to bring it to audiences. It’s massive in scale. We love telling very big stories. And it’s the first time that we’ve reunited with our key collaborators from Avengers Endgame. Christopher Marcus and Stephen McFeely wrote the script. Jeffrey Ward, who edited all of the movies we did with Marvel, is the editor on this. Alan Silvestri scored. So hopefully as big as it gets, so if you’re hungry for a giant fantasy film, we’ve got one for you. 

Q : Millie, I would imagine there are a lot of factors that are exciting for you to take this on. Working with Russo, working with Chris for the first time. What intrigued you from the start? What sold you?

Millie Bobby Brown: I had the privilege of going to set on Avengers to watch the Russos Direct when I was 13. I was filming Stranger Things and they invited me, I remember watching them and thinking, I want to be an actor, I want to work with them, that was so cool, I made that my goal. And many years later, my dad came to me and said, I read a script, I think you should do it, this is one of the best scripts I’ve ever read, I trusted his gut, read it, and immediately fell in love with Michelle, and then, the fact that the Russo Brothers were attached just made me so excited, I finally reached my dream of being able to work with them, and then yeah, working with Chris was alright. 

Q : Do you have a rebuttal against Millie Bobby Brown? 

Chris Pratt : First of all, how dare you!! That’s my rebuttal. 

Q : You’ve worked with these guys(Russo Brothers)  before, but you’ve never been front and center, those Avengers movies are gigantic ensembles. If you and Millie center stage here, it must have been an exciting opportunity to work with them in this capacity. 

Chris Pratt : 100%, I had intended to take a chunk of time off to be home then I read this script. I was like, nah, I guess I have to do this. It was so good, and opportunities like this just don’t come around that often to work with such an incredible team.

We’ve worked together before, not just the Russo brothers, and I love you both so much, but also our AD department, the people that you know like you mentioned the editor, I’ve worked with same folks before , I looked at the script, it was original IP, and it’s you know adapted of course from an incredible graphic novel, but it’s not the kind of thing that typically gets made to be a blockbuster style movie like this.

It’s so original, a huge swing, and I thought that these types of movies might, I don’t know, maybe my last opportunity to be in a big movie like this. I have to look at every opportunity like that, it was such a great story, I was moved to tears. When you see the movie, you will see it’s an incredible story.

It’s so beautiful, it’s so original. There’s this feel of an ambulance style world that I loved watching the Goonies and other films from the 80s and 90s. it feels that way, but it’s contemporary. It has themes that are so resonant and important for today with regards to technology and humanity.

It’s just a special film. when something comes along like this, you have to do it. I had my wife read it, and she was like, yeah, you have to do this movie. So I got permission from Mama, and got to play with the boys and girls. 

©Courtesy of Netflix

Q : Talk to me about the process of adaptation. This is inspired by a graphic novel. We’re gonna show imagery from the film that’s inspired by the graphic novel, talk to me about the challenges, what you wanted to capture from the source material that was important for you. 

Anthony Russo : The experience we’ve had largely with adapting that you’re referencing, I think the four Marvel movies we made, Joe and I made those in collaboration with Chris Marcus and Steve McFeely, the writers. And we were very much working in the same mode on this one, with sort of really exciting, inspiring source material that we were all trying to fashion a story from, fashion a film from.

So, Simon Stålenhag, the artist who created the graphic novel, The Electric State, has passionate fans around the world, his images are striking and when you see them, Chris Marcus was the first to see the book. And he brought it to Stephen, and Joe, and I, and he said, I think it’s in here.

The story in the graphic novel is very opaque. You get glimpses, but you can tell there’s a much larger world behind what he’s telling you in the graphic novel. And it works beautifully for a graphic novel, but of course in order to tell a two hour feature film, you have to get much more specific about the narrative.

So, we had great fun diving in, using his incredible artwork as inspiration to figure out what kind of story we could tell in this world. What happened here, you’re looking at this world that’s been wrecked by a horrible war with robots. And you don’t know why, and you don’t know how, and you don’t know what happened from it. You’re piecing together what happened, and his art is so fascinating that it just makes you keep chasing it. And I think that’s how we got to the movie. 

Q : And you’ve referenced this, so this is, in a sense, a 90s movie, but it’s a 90s that has some familiarity to those of us that grew up in the 90s. But it’s certainly a different one. Joe, what did you want to allude to in the 90s that we’ve all experienced? What did you want to retain in this kind of alternate version? 

Joe Russo: It’s fun too, it’s a fable. I think some really compelling themes in it about technology, and Anthony, I tend to find that we put those themes. Themes are very resonant. It’s currently resonant. We put them in somewhere fantastic fun. It’s a little easier to process those themes. Imagine a 1990s where in the late fifties, Disney invented animatronics that became sentient, then started demanding equal rights. And that’s where the war comes from.

It’s got a very community tone, cherry picking the 90s in a way that supports that storytelling and supports the theme of the movie. There’s a lot of fun stuff in it. There’s a lot of fun music. There’s a lot of things I think that, if you were a child in the 80s or grew up in the 90s that you are recognized and fun with. But it’s all just twisted a little bit. 

Q: So Millie, you’ve done the 1880s, the 1980s, now moving into the 1990s, but different kinds of 1990s. You have Pratt on set. He has experienced the 1990s. Were you the default technical advisor to Bill and Bobby Brown to explain what it was like? 

Chris Pratt : Cosmo, do you want to take this one?

Cosmo the Robot : No!!

Chris Pratt : Yes, yeah. It’s the 90s that is reflective of our modern world. It’s like all the pop culture icons, we drew everything from the 90s that we could. A lot of references, great music cues various things that you’ll see through the course of the film. I grew up in the 90s and it’s astounding that it’s now a deep period like it’s wild…

Millie Bobby Brown: It’s way back. 

Chris Pratt : It’s way back….

Millie Bobby Brown: Sorry. 

Chris Pratt : It’s a long time ago as far back as the 50s was when they did Back to the Future. 

©Courtesy of Netflix

Q : That’s a horrible but true reference point. You mentioned Alan Silvestri, by the way. I’ve seen the movie, and a crackerjack Alan Silvestri score, that brings you right back. Amazing. Was Amblin something you talked about with your actors? Were there films referenced about what they were trying to evoke? 

Joe Russo: Yeah, without question. Anthony and I grew up in the 80s and 90s and a lot of what we do has to do with nostalgia and things that were impactful to us when we were growing up. And Alan Silvestri’s scores. We’re part of some of our favorite movies. We often talk about Back to the Future as the perfect film, and the score has a lot to do with it. One of the great themes in movie history, we got the opportunity to work with Alan.

In Avengers, we can see how the work he does with the 90 piece orchestra dimensionalized the storytelling in a way that’s evocative of your favorite giant films. And so we were certainly aspiring to make an Ambln type film or a Zemeckis type movie. With this one,  it’s very Zemeckis in tone.

Q : Let’s hear more about your respected characters, as much as you’re willing to say. What did you connect with Michelle’s storyline in this? 

Millie Bobby Brown: I had never done anything like this before. I kind of went into it maybe on the cockier side thinking it was going to be like a Weckner situation, and I could take it on, and it was not.

It was very different. as an actor, it challenged me but another, it’s just like finding who she is while filming. I didn’t do much prep because I went straight from one film to another. I really went in with the idea, I just want to be like a 90’s Drew Barrymore. I kept sending that picture, like this image.

And I was like I want my hair to look like this and this is what I want to wear. I had this idea of who I wanted. I found who she was as we went along, and the Russos did a beautiful job directing my trajectory, because I think, obviously, with playing this kind of angsty teen, it can easily come across as there’s a human left in her.

I didn’t go through the angsty teen phase, I kept going back to the Russos. How do you want me to play this and that? We really found it together, what I love is this collaboration of finding who she is, now I found her, so I’m unbelievably proud and happy with the end result.

Q : And for you Chris, your characterKeats, when we first see, he’s not at his best, the world’s been through a lot, but he’s been through a lot. What did you connect with, what did you like about this guy? 

Chris Pratt : These guys gave me such freedom to help discover this character. He’s really gotten a wild look about him and he’s lived a hard life. I was rooting it in a character that I knew growing up, this guy named Kenny Gundacker  who’s actually now unfortunately no longer alive but he was my neighbor 30 plus years ago in Anchorage, Alaska in this really small apartment complex with my family, he was son of our neighbor, and I thought I lived next door to David Lee Roth, because I was about 6 or 7, and I would watch MTV and see, Van Halen in concert, and then I would look in the backyard and see this guy in tiger stripe jumpsuit or spandex pants with like long blonde iced out hair and a mini electric guitar jumping on a mini trampoline rocking..

I was like, no way, that’s my neighbor, that guy lives next door. Because my world was small, I thought that was who that was. He was such a god to me, like the 80s vibe and he was so irresponsible and he would take us like for water balloon fights and drive us around in his dad’s car and he was like probably a terrible influence and I just loved him, he was such a man to me, and so like I looked at Keats and I was like he grew up in the 80s, he would be like I love the idea that Keats would have been part of a band.

I love the idea, you know Keats is a veteran of war, but he’s a bit cynical about war, because he survived this robot war and this human war and understood, was able to see sort of humanity in robots, cynical about the military industrial complex, a cool character to play, and that would be an 80s guy living in the 90s who’s passed his crime, and I just dove into it, it was so fun. 

Q: Probably a high water mark in your hair for you, I would say, in your career. Millie, what did you think of Chris’ hair when you finally saw him in full Keats mode? 

Millie Bobby Brown: I knew he made a choice for his character..lol

Chris Pratt : I can’t believe they let me. In fact, they really didn’t..because halfway through they’re like, we have an idea, maybe he gets a haircut. I was like, cool, that makes sense. Maybe a little robot with scissors that likes to cut people’s hair and just happens to show up and there’s a relationship I think that is how that ended up being happening. I was like, hey, I have an idea how he’d get a haircut. It’d be really funny. So yeah, I got to be my best self for half the movie and then for the rest I got to be the guy that put on the one sheet. It was fun. 

©Courtesy of Netflix

Q : Okay, we couldn’t have a Comic Con panel without something special. We’re about to show you exclusive footage. this is just for you in the room. So put your cell phones down. You’re watching, Cosmo’s watching. This is an extended clip from The Electric State coming out March 14th on Netflix. 

They showed the exclusive clip. 

Q : That felt like genuine Panda Express love that was from the heart. Did anybody recognize Herm’s voice by the way, the giant robot carrying the car there… Anthony Mackie everybody, amazing!! Can you tease a little bit of Herman’s backstory? You want to reveal about that character if anything…

Joe Russo : I mean I think what’s interesting about all the lead characters in the movie is that they all have some trauma in their lives that they’re running from, they’re all dropouts in their own way. The technology is really pervasive in the movie, but none of them want to participate in it. And they found their own way to escape it and Herman is dropped out of robot society and doesn’t participate in it. 

He and Keats teamed up and they’re kind of you know they live off the grid basically. And on the run from the law together. Herman is a bit of a Russian doll that he has you know different sizes that he comes in, depending on the job that’s required. He’s a construction bot, so he’s got a 4 foot size and as you see there a much larger 20 foot size. 

Q : I’m curious both of you have worked with massive effects in TV and film, but when playing emotional scenes with Herman, with Cosmo is that now part of the skill set? Can you talk about the challenges of being emotionally there when there’s nothing in front of you? 

Millie Bobby Brown: I think from me personally, I know Chris has worked with Mocap( Mocap is a technology-driven method of capturing an actor’s motion and physical performance so it may be translated to a CGI character), and I hadn’t before. For me it was either a tennis ball, or it was a costume.

It was never in between, and to be able to work alongside Mocap actors that are really beautiful performances. Devin, who was my Mocap actor, played Cosmo. And she drew out a lot of emotion in me, I have a lot of emotional scenes with Cosmo. I don’t want to say this in front of him, I don’t want him to feel different. He’s not, but I had a lot of emotional scenes and the first month took me a minute because you have to leave humility at the door. You look insane doing it, you do one pass with the Mocap actor and one pass with no one and I’m just looking into the air, crying.

I think it’s added to my skill set. I have a huge amount of gratitude to one, the Russos, but also the Mocap actors and team that helped build the world so we didn’t have to do most of the work. 

Q : For you, Chris, seeing that finished scene must be like magic. Because you’re now seeing the effects, hearing Anthony Mackie none of that is on set. That probably never gets old. You’ve been in giant effects films but it’s a whole other thing. 

Chris Pratt : There’s something special about it and remarkable about being in a film that’s got so many elements of animation. When you do a live action film, say limited to a handful of sets, it feels like doing a play. You’re living and breathing in the space and you’re working with the actors, you see their costumes, you see the set, you see the props. And so by the time you watch the movie, You’ve already seen the movie because you were there every single day.

And, the opposite of that spectrum would be if you only added your voice to an animated movie like Super Mario Bros. You’re in your pajamas just giving a voice then there’s a whole post production animation process you’re not part of.

When you sit down and watch the movie, you go, wow, that’s what that was. I didn’t really know. This is a strange mix of both and the beauty of being in that as these guys will know they’re never going to be able to sit down and watch a Russo brothers movie as an audience member. They’re so intimately connected with every frame, they know everything on that screen is the result of them making a decision as to whether or not you should be on that screen.

So they know this film inside and out, completely divorced from any reality where they can be swept up in the story. And so for me, sitting and watching this, and I look forward to sitting down and properly seeing it from the beginning to end, I’m really looking forward to becoming an audience member.

And when you have so many elements of animation, it allows you to do that as a performer. And that’s a real gift, because for the most part, you’re in a movie, you’re giving it to audiences. 

Q : I want to give love to the remarkable ensemble of actors, both voices of robots, live action, a mix of everything. Mr. Peanut, voiced by Woody Harrelson in a movie and wait till you see it’s amazing. We’ve got Brian Cox and Jenny Slate, Stanley Tucci, Giancarlo Esposito, just talk to me about the approach to… the overarching approach to casting an ensemble like this. 

Anthony Russo : Joe and I, if you look at our work, we are big fans of ensemble storytelling. You can see it in our work, smaller movies or bigger movies, or television work. We love ensembles, and we think it’s because we come from a big Italian American family where there were lots of people in small rooms together, talking loudly all the time.

And you develop a sense of community and appreciation for the variety of voices we’ve always focused on ensembles. And believe every member of that ensemble is special and can give you an experience, bring something to the movie that is wholly unique and can be as memorable and valuable as anything else in the film.

That’s the way we’ve always approached our storytelling. We have a large number of roles, and we try to tell the story from all of their points of views. And part of that is, we bring special actors to play those roles. We’re fortunate to find such an amazing cast to surround these two wonderful leads with. And it’s just all part of the process of trying to make every character special, resonant, meaningful and fun, everything can be. 

Q : It’s always a bit of a leap into the unknown for actors when they’re going to spend a lot of the film together and they’ve never worked with each other before. Talk to me about did you guys click immediately and what level did you click and figure out you were going to ride together on set? 

Chris Pratt : I thought we connected immediately. 

Millie Bobby Brown: You did?…I’m sorry. No. We did, we actually did. We actually met a few years before. I’m a huge fan of Chris, I was in an elevator and was like, Oh my god, that’s Chris Pratt! And then I was like, they were like, Oh, Chris Pratt’s gonna be in the movie. I was like, oh yeah, just casually Okay, I’m gonna co star with him. I worked on the set, and it’s intimidating. I’m 19. I have to be here and give 50 percent and I was intimidated. And then he walks on the set and he’s Hey! As if he’s known me my whole life. And I was like, oh I feel seen and loved already.

It was an immediate click. I felt so unprofessional because I laughed every single take, he would make me laugh. And I think just having that kind of energy, on set specifically, creates this sense of trust and love and friendship that I think transpires on screen, which I think is really special and really rare.

Chris Pratt : Yes, I know, you’re full of shit..lol… yeah, but yes, we met when she was very much a child at some awards thing, I think, MTV Awards…

Millie Bobby Brown : The Kids Choice Awards…

Chris Pratt :  That’s right, the Kids Choice Awards….

Q : Where all great friendships are born…

Chris Pratt : Yes. I think that might be where we met. (Looking at the moderator Josh) and I remember just from that moment, she was so sweet and innocent and pure, and of course I’m a huge fan of Stranger Things, and I’ve been watching her body work, it’s been awesome to watch her career take off, and to see her take over and start to rule the world, right? And yes, you can give it up for another singer.

I was really eager to work with her, and, look, these guys can attest to this, because they’re the same way there’s no room for shitty attitudes. You can’t have a bad attitude in movie making. It ruins everything for everyone, and then you don’t last long. It sucks when people have a crappy attitude.

When you show up on set, there’s no reason why you should be like, Oh, are you having a hard time living your dream? Is that tough for you today? You’re like, come on, man, pull your head out and have fun. And we did have a lot of fun, and she’s just incredible. She was surrounded by all these animals, They would yell cut and she’d go to her phone and she’s finding a home for some pygmy goats to be adopted to.

And organizing a U-Haul full of pit bull puppies to be taken to Indiana. Such a huge heart, such a love for animals, such a love for her now husband, Jake, who is on set every day. It’s awesome normal people who live extraordinary lives. I can see the person in that, because I feel the same way, we had a great time, and became fast friends. You can’t get rid of me, sorry. 

Millie Bobby Brown: I’m very glad to have you as my friend. 

Q : And everybody gets a goat or a pinball on the way out!!

Millie Bobby Brown: No, honestly I could if you wanted one. Call me, I’m a hustler. 

Chris Pratt : That’s true. You are the puppy hustler. I remember being like, we gotta get them out while they’re still cute. 

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Here’s the trailer of the film.