The Electric State
Writer
For the release of Netflix's The Electric State, my wife Krista Jensen and I spent seven months writing for robots.
Netflix built the film's robots in real life: Kid Cosmo, the film's robot sidekick, rebuilt by UCLA's RoMeLa lab, and the Billbots — two roaming billboard robots named Bert and Louise, an old married couple in robot form. Louise is tall, sassy, and a little mean. Bert is short, kind, and anxious. They communicate in text on their screens, and for seven months, everything they "said" was written by us.
It started with a content day with Millie Bobby Brown and Chris Pratt, and a stack of extra canned lines for Kid Cosmo (the brief: "squeaky clean, almost so PG it's funny"). Then New York Comic Con, where the Billbots roamed the floor, worked the crowd, and opened the film's panel. Then the Today Show, London, Lucca, a Netflix executive retreat, the LA premiere, a handprint ceremony at Grauman's, and Pickleball Slam 3, where the bots served as line judges.
A few of the lines:
BERT: "GREETINGS COMICONIANS"
LOUISE: "HELLO HUMAN SCUM"
"WE ARE BILLBOARDS. NOT SMARTPHONES."
"FOR THE LAST TIME. WE ARE NOT AN ATM."
Rachel Samuels at Netflix, after Comic Con: "the bots were such a big success, your writing was so great and really helped bring them to life!"
The film was released March 14, 2025. The bots are still waiting on their residuals. (Their line, not mine: "SEE NETFLIX' THE ELECTRIC STATE. WE WANT RESIDUALS.")