The Russo Brothers and Stars of ‘The Electric State’ Discuss Adapting the Graphic Novel

With The Electric State premiering on Netflix, I had the chance to discuss the new film with directors/producers Anthony and Joe Russo as well as stars Millie Bobby Brown, Chris Pratt, and Giancarl…

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With The Electric State premiering on Netflix, I had the chance to discuss the new film with directors/producers Anthony and Joe Russo as well as stars Millie Bobby Brown, Chris Pratt, and Giancarlo Esposito! Please note: these conversations will contain spoilers.

Set in the aftermath of a robot uprising in an alternate version of the ’90s, The Electric State follows an orphaned teenager who ventures across the American West with a cartoon-inspired robot, a smuggler, and his sidekick in search of her younger brother.

“I think that for Michelle, she needed someone to give her hope again. I think she lost a lot of faith and hope in humanity and in life, honestly,” Brown expressed. “I don’t think she knew really what life was worth living for at that point, because she had lost her entire family. So I think he [Keats] gave her hope and a reminder to keep pushing and keep trying.”

Pratt, who portrays Keats, opened up about how he uses the source material while preparing for a role, saying, “I try to do as much research as I can and get as much information as I can. This source material is primarily visual, so it’s a great starting point for what The Russo Brothers and our VFX team created in terms of the visuals, and then the story from my understanding is more so kind of crafted to tell a narrative through line that supports all of that visual artwork.”

“It’s not as hard as it may seem because we’re using the source material, because there’s something in it that we love, right? So it’s like, [something] that we really value. So honoring the source material actually becomes kind of easy because it’s sort of like part of our motivation for using it in the first place in a weird way,” Anthony Russo explained. “Look, we always think like a comic book or a graphic novel, it’s so radically different than a film. You can’t do the exact same thing in both formats. So we don’t have an expectation on ourselves to do that. In fact, we think it’s our job that if we are going to reinterpret something from one form to another, it’s our job to make it feel fresh, new, and surprising to ourselves and to audiences. So for us, it’s kind of baked into how we work, not to say that we never have those kinds of issues, but it kind of lines up pretty naturally.”

Esposito told me about how he collaborated on the scene where The Marshall lets Mr. Peanut go on the battlefield, which did not originally exist in the script: “I had a feeling that there were a couple of points where this character could transform himself, and have a real revelation and a redemption. And so, it was something that I felt strongly about.”

He continued to share, “I thought, ‘Well, or it could happen when he’s on the battlefield somewhere,’ and Joe and Anthony are really profound human beings and gentle and collaborators in every sense of the word. When I mentioned it, they were intrigued and thought, ‘Wow, what an incredible thing that we could find a space to have this happen,’ and when I got to finally read that scene, I really loved it. But I also realized that it happens quickly and Joe said something to me last night after the screening. He said, ‘It’s really great to witness such a complete character transformation in a few moments, and it’s a tribute to you as an actor to be able to pull that off.’ So, a very important moment for me because it allowed me also in the suggestion and in the consideration of that to be seen, to be heard, to be looked at as a collaborator, to lift up the completeness of what this movie is meant that I was doing what I was meant to be doing.”

In the sci-fi adventure, there’s a great Avengers comic book Easter egg, which I, of course, had to ask about. “We had to rush a book in. I think we had to call a vendor, like a comic book shop in the area, and get a book rushed in,” Joe Russo revealed. “We originally wanted a Great Lakes Avengers comics, but we couldn’t find one in time, so we had to go with the West Coast Avengers.”

We talked about their approach to adapting the graphic novel, significant character moments, fun Easter eggs, the story’s deeper themes, and more.

Watch my interviews below:

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