The Creator Director Gareth Edwards Talks AI, Casting Alfie, and Filming In 8 Countries
In a future war between humans and AI, an ex-special forces agent is recruited to hunt down The Creator. But what happens when his team learns the elusive architect of the advanced AI has developed a mysterious world-ending weapon in the form of an AI child?
This futuristic and dystopian film had a great opportunity to create a world from scratch. The easiest and most common way to accomplish this new world building would be through green screen filming and post-production CGI. Director Gareth Edwards revealed in a press conference that “the cost of the crew was so little that it's cheaper to fly them anywhere in the world than it is to build a set.” Their approach to making the film changed drastically when they realized it would be easier to pick their locations based on visual value, opposed to building something and filming against green screens.
Gareth noted he started picking “the volcanoes of Indonesia, Buddhist temples in the Himalayas, ruins of Cambodia, and floating villages.” The studio supported his vision of an untraditional filming technique and it definitely paid off. “[We] went to eight different countries and shot the movie a lot more like an independent film,” Edwards explained. This approach allowed the film to have a more realistic look and left the post-production to pay attention to much smaller details and elements. This style of production also allowed the team to work with real people, not just professional actors. “Everyone in the movie is actually villagers from the little village by the Buddhist temple,” he shared about the communities excited for be involved in a blockbuster film. “And some of the kids agreed to shave their heads and play some of the robot monks in AI and stuff. It was kinda surreal.”
Edwards also recounted his audition process and how difficult he knew it would be to find the perfect Alfie based on the amount of travel and untraditional filming style. After her original audition brought the team to tears, he thought Madeleine Yuna Voyles might be too good to be true. At the end of the audition, Edwards made up another scene for her to try and, when she nailed it too, he knew she was their kid.
Voyles stars alongside John David Washington who plays ex-special forces agent Joshua When speaking about the co-stars relationship, Edwards revealed that Washington “cracked the code and became like a big brother to her and her best friend.” He even shared that he saved certain scenes to the end of the shoot so that their personal friendship would be able to shine through into the more emotional scenes of the film.
A large theme of the film is artificial intelligence and its impact on society. Recent discussions around AI are extremely controversial and have a lot of differing opinions on its applications. Edwards shared that he started writing this in 2018 “when AI was up there with flying cars and living on the moon.” He considered it “something maybe you would see in your lifetime, but probably not.” He believes that, after the apprehension to adopt this new technology dies down, people will learn how it works and it will become part of our society like all previous technological advances like the Internet and computers.
Dive into the sci-fi odyssey that is The Creator when it hits theaters on September 29.
