The Creator Director Gareth Edwards On Finding The Heart Of His Sci-Fi Fairy Tale [Exclusive Interview] – /Film

Another thing I noticed that supports the story, is that Alphie [the AI child played by Madeleine Yuna Voyles] watches a lot of television, and among other things we see her watch a NOMAD anime on TV.

Yeah! I’m glad you spotted that.

So I guess this is a two-parter: One, what was your approach to having all the TV that Alphie was watching? What did you want to convey with that? And two, how did that NOMAD anime come into being?

That NOMAD anime was not easy, because we shot with real cartoons, and I thought it’d be a good little trick to occupy Madeline whilst we were shooting scenes — she could just watch cartoons. That’s easy money, right? I didn’t need to do that, because she’s an amazing actress. Then I always felt like, “We’ll replace that cartoon at some point, we’ll replace it.” And then it was one of the last things we did in the whole of post-production, was like, “Oh my God, the cartoon. We haven’t got the rights to the thing that we used.” But we used anime on the set, and it was like, “Where are we going to find someone who can do all these designs [of NOMAD] and make it look like anime?” And I’m glad you spotted that detail, because we moved heaven and earth to make that happen, and these great animators came in at the last minute and got the film over the finish line.

And I was like, “Is anyone even going to notice this?” I thought it was something you’d have to watch two or three times to go, “Wait a minute. That’s the stuff in the world.” But yeah, I love all that stuff. I mean, my favorite moments are in Joe Dante films where they’ve got a TV on in the corner of the room, and something very scary and terrible is happening over here, but the music’s like a Warner Bros. cartoon or something. I love that kind of contrast.

“The Creator” premieres in theaters on September 29, 2023.