Chris Pratt proposed the idea of an AI actor starring in Mercy
Mercy star Chris Pratt has revealed that he suggested that an AI actor feature opposite him in the initial stages of development for the movie.
Chris Pratt suggested that an AI actor star opposite him in Mercy.
The 46-year-old actor plays homicide detective Chris Raven - who has 90 minutes to prove his innocence to AI Judge Maddox (Rebecca Ferguson) when he is accused of murdering his wife - in the new film and revealed that he pitched the idea of creating an actual AI actor to play the part in the early stages of the movie's development.
Pratt told Entertainment Weekly: "I remember talking about the various people who could play these characters, and early on, I was like, 'Should we have it be an AI, where the judge is actually AI, and we create an AI?' And everyone was like, 'No, I don't think so.'
"I was like, 'Yeah, I don't think that's a good idea at all.'
"So it was actually never a possibility any more than anything is a possibility when you're zeroing in on what the outcome is going to be and what the choices are that you're going to make. It's a collaborative effort."
The Guardians of the Galaxy star also recalled how another early idea of his was instantly shot down.
Chris explained: "It's dumb, it's going to be dumb. It did not make sense, and I'm glad we didn't do it. But one of my pitches early on was like, 'What if [my character] could pick the judge, and I could pick Oprah, or I could pick anyone I want.' Because ultimately it's just a face on a [screen]. And I thought that would be funny to have Oprah do it."
He joked: "It's like when you watch the deleted scenes, and you're like, 'Yeah, there's a good reason to delete that scene.'"
Pratt was ultimately delighted that movie bosses opted to cast Ferguson as the AI judge.
He said of the Mission: Impossible star: "She's so incredible in the film. She was a great piece of casting, because she's so striking, she's so beautiful, her face is so symmetrical that she almost looks like she's an AI."
Chris revealed that a lot of rehearsal time went into the flick, but this ultimately paid off as it made the editing process considerably quicker.
The Jurassic World star explained: "We rehearsed it often, almost like how you would rehearse a play where you figure out the beats and the tones in the rehearsal process, and then you lay the thing out."
Pratt continued: "A lot of times in acting, you can build off what you did previously.
"You try something different. You give the editor 10 million options and let them create the movie they want to create in the post-production process. For us, we had a very streamlined vision of what we wanted it to be before we even shot it."
