Netflix’s The Electric State stars Millie Bobby Brown as Michelle and Chris Pratt as Keats, an unlikely pair crossing an alternate, retro-futuristic American West. Michelle is searching for her younger brother Christopher, while Keats is a smuggler traveling with Herman, his sarcastic utility robot. Cosmo, a small cartoon-like machine who joins them, becomes the emotional center of the journey.
This guide covers the principal human and robot cast, the performers behind the motion-captured characters, the key relationships and the spoiler-filled ending.
Netflix’s The Electric State stars Millie Bobby Brown as Michelle and Chris Pratt as Keats, an unlikely pair crossing an alternate, retro-futuristic American West. Michelle is searching for her younger brother Christopher, while Keats is a smuggler trying to survive with Herman, his sarcastic utility robot. Along the way, they are joined by Cosmo, a small cartoon-like machine whose connection to Michelle becomes the emotional center of the film.
Directed by Anthony and Joe Russo and released on Netflix on March 14, 2025, The Electric State is set in an alternate version of the 1990s after a human-robot war. Sentient machines have been defeated and forced into a walled-off Exclusion Zone, leaving the landscape filled with abandoned infrastructure, consumer imagery, battle debris and displaced robots.
Quick wins for a faster PC:
Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →#1 Best Overall
- 2 pk DESIGN: The Trendsetter's frame features a 1" wide profile and a high gloss black finish creating a traditional display for your favorite posters, prints or artwork
- DIMENSIONS: Each frame measures 28x.66x41 inches and holds one 27x40 inch photograph or art print
- QUALITY CONSTRUCTION: Each frame is constructed of durable extruded polystyrene material with a shatter resistant lightweight plastic protective front that helps prevent breakage
- EASY TO USE: Each frame includes a natural corrugate back with pre-attached sawtooth hangers for easy vertical or horizontal hanging; Just add your artwork and hang
- WALL DECOR: With a passion for design, trend and functionality, MCS delivers best-in-class products that help make your house a home; The MCS Trendsetter Poster Frame is the perfect choice for displaying posters, prints or artwork in your home, office, or dorm room
Warning: the character guide below contains major spoilers, including the ending and the fates of Christopher, Cosmo, Herman and Colonel Bradbury.
The main cast of The Electric State
Millie Bobby Brown as Michelle
Michelle is the film’s protagonist, an orphaned teenager carrying the emotional consequences of devastating family losses. Her life changes when she learns that Christopher, her younger brother, may still be alive. What begins as a rescue mission takes her across the robot-riddled Southwest and into the institutions responsible for the postwar technological order.
Michelle is tough enough to travel through dangerous territory, but the film also presents her as emotionally guarded and vulnerable. Her search for Christopher is not only a physical journey. It is an attempt to recover the family and certainty she believes were taken from her. Her relationship with Cosmo gradually challenges her refusal to trust or form new attachments.
Chris Pratt as Keats
Keats is a low-rent smuggler who reluctantly becomes Michelle’s traveling companion. Their partnership starts as a practical arrangement rather than an immediate friendship: Michelle needs help crossing the country, and Keats has his own reasons for taking the job.
Outdated Drivers Are Slowing You Down
One free scan finds every outdated or missing driver and matches the right update for your exact hardware.Free scan · exact hardware matchPC Slower Than It Used to Be?
A free scan shows the junk files, broken settings and background clutter dragging Windows down - then fixes them in one click.Free scan · Windows 10 & 11Keats provides a rough-edged contrast to Michelle’s focused determination. His guarded attitude and survival instincts conceal a protective side that emerges as their journey becomes more dangerous. His banter with Herman supplies much of the film’s comic energy, but their relationship also carries the memory of the war in which humans and robots fought one another.
Woody Norman as Christopher
Christopher is Michelle’s younger brother and a scientific prodigy. Although he is absent for much of the early story, the search for him drives the entire plot. Michelle initially understands her mission as a straightforward rescue, but the truth about Christopher connects him to the technology, experiments and powerful institutions behind the conflict between humans and robots.
Christopher’s role changes the meaning of Michelle’s journey. The question is not simply whether she can find him, but whether she can accept what has happened to him and recognize the limits of rescue.
Giancarlo Esposito as Colonel Bradbury
Colonel Bradbury is a former hero of the human-robot uprising who now works as a bounty hunter hunting robots that cross the border. He uses a walking drone called the Marshall to track and kill machines in the Exclusion Zone.
What’s actually slowing this PC down?
Pick the symptom - the matching free tool is one click away.
Bradbury is not presented as a simple villain. He is intellectually formidable and committed to control, but regret and uncertainty exist beneath his apparent loyalty to the established order. His encounter with the robot leader Mr. Peanut eventually forces him to confront the possibility that the cruelty he associates with robots is also present in human institutions.
Ke Huy Quan as Dr. Amherst
Dr. Amherst is one of the important human figures connected to the scientific and technological power structure surrounding Christopher. His place in the story helps expand the film beyond Michelle’s personal search and toward its larger questions about scientific authority, institutional power and the treatment of human life as a technological resource.
Rank #2
- STUDIO GALLERY SELECT COLLECTION: Picture frames feature a black woodgrain finish designed to help you create the perfect traditional display for your cherished memories and favorite photographs. Display one frame or many to create a gallery wall.
- EASY TO USE: These hanging picture frames have easy-to-open turn buttons with slide-in backs that make adding your photograph a breeze. Frames include pre-attached sawtooth hangers for horizontal or vertical hanging.
- QUALITY CONSTRUCTION: This photo frame is constructed of durable MDF wood with a sturdy backboard and shatter resistant plexiglass front to protect photos.
- MCS ROOM DECOR: Our poster frames add sleek, modern style to movie room decor and home theaters. Perfect for displaying movie posters, artwork, or prints. Use multiple sizes to create a personalized gallery wall of framed movie posters or theater room art. Designed with quality and trend in mind, MCS movie poster frames help transform any room into a cinematic experience.
- DIMENSIONS: This large picture frame features a 1.1-inch wide modern profile and holds a 27x40 x 0.75 poster, picture or artwork.
Stanley Tucci as Ethan Skate
Ethan Skate is a technology-industry power broker associated with the systems governing humans and robots. As the story exposes the cost of technological control, Skate becomes part of the film’s criticism of institutions that treat both machines and people as controllable assets.
Jason Alexander as Ted
Ted is part of the film’s supporting human ensemble. His role contributes to the wider social and institutional world surrounding Michelle, rather than defining the central road-trip partnership.
The Tool Desk
Outbyte Driver Updater FREEFix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →Outbyte PC Repair FREEClear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →The principal robot characters
Alan Tudyk as Cosmo
Cosmo is a small, sweet, cartoon-style robot who enters Michelle’s life and becomes her companion. Netflix describes Cosmo as the emotional core of Michelle’s journey, and that role is central to understanding the character. Cosmo’s innocence, persistence and dependence gradually give Michelle a reason to trust again after the loss of her family.
Cosmo is more than a cute guide or a plot device. The robot represents the possibility of connection after trauma. Cosmo’s relationship with Michelle also complicates the film’s distinction between human and machine: the character’s emotional importance comes from the bond formed with Michelle, not from being human.
Alan Tudyk provides Cosmo’s voice. Devyn Dalton and Phoenix Notary are credited as Cosmo’s motion-capture performers, illustrating how the finished character combines vocal performance, physical performance and visual effects.
Anthony Mackie as Herman
Herman is Keats’s utility-robot sidekick. He can appear in multiple sizes and has a sarcastic, wisecracking personality that plays against Keats’s more guarded human persona. Their arguments and jokes make them one of the film’s most entertaining pairings.
Recommended Free Tools
There is also a history beneath the comedy: Keats and Herman began as enemies during the war before becoming friends. Their partnership therefore offers one of the film’s clearest examples of reconciliation between humans and robots. It suggests that shared experience and loyalty can survive the political categories used to divide the two groups.
Anthony Mackie voices Herman, while Martin Klebba performed the character through motion capture.
Woody Harrelson as Mr. Peanut
Mr. Peanut is modeled after the Planters Peanuts mascot and serves as a leader among the robots living in the abandoned Blue Sky Acres Mall. The character’s recognizable commercial identity is repurposed into something political: Mr. Peanut helps organize a robot community in a world that has expelled and hunted its machines.
Mr. Peanut represents the possibility that robots can build a society rather than merely exist as abandoned products or fugitives. His late-film relationship with Colonel Bradbury becomes an important symbol of coexistence, turning a former robot hunter and a robot leader into unexpected partners in peace.
Rank #3
- Sturdy & Delicate Frames Set: The Fisnish 27x40 inch poster frame is made of solid MDF wood, ensuring durability and resistance to damage or deformation compared to plastic frames, while perfectly protecting your cherished photos.
- Size & Display: These 27 x 40 poster frame are ideal for displaying large posters, artwork, or photos. The high-definition plexiglass panel (with protective peel-off films on both sides) offers crystal-clear visibility. Without a mat, the design maximizes the visible area, allowing artwork to extend seamlessly to the canvas edge.
- Easy Installation: Each black 27x40 frame includes pre-installed hanging hardware for quick wall mounting. The spring-loaded back panel allows effortless photo insertion and replacement, eliminating hassle.
- Protective Packaging: Each set of movie poster frame 27x40 is individually sealed in tight plastic wrap and securely packed in a reinforced carton, guaranteeing safe delivery. Shop with confidence!
- Perfect Gift Choice: With a timeless, minimalist design, these frames complement any home décor style. Whether enhancing your bedroom, living room, office, or gallery walls, they also serve as a heartfelt gift for everyone.
Brian Cox as Pop Fly
Pop Fly is the blustery elder statesman of the Blue Sky Acres robot community. Brian Cox’s voice gives him a dry, authoritative presence, and his role helps make the mall settlement feel like an organized society with history and internal character—not simply a hiding place filled with unrelated machines.
Jenny Slate as Penny Pal
Penny Pal is a nervous mail-carrier robot whose anxious energy adds warmth and vulnerability to the community of exiled machines. Her design and occupation reinforce one of the film’s recurring ideas: even after the social system that created them has collapsed, the robots retain traces of their former identities and assigned functions.
Jenny Slate provides Penny Pal’s voice, and Gabrielle Maiden is credited as the character’s motion-capture performer.
Hank Azaria as Perplexo
Perplexo is a mechanical magician whose showmanship is more impressive than his actual sleight of hand. The character extends the film’s fascination with entertainment machines, mascots and exaggerated consumer identities surviving after the culture that produced them has broken down.
Hank Azaria voices Perplexo, while Christopher Silvestri performed the character through motion capture.
How the character relationships shape the story
Michelle and Christopher: a rescue mission that changes meaning
Michelle’s relationship with Christopher is the emotional engine of the plot. She crosses a dangerous country because she believes finding him will restore the family she lost. As the truth emerges, however, the mission becomes a confrontation with grief and with the limits of what love can repair.
The film ultimately asks Michelle to stop treating Christopher as someone who can simply be recovered and returned to his old life. Accepting that reality is painful, but it allows her to move beyond the version of the past she has been trying to reclaim.
Michelle and Cosmo: learning to form a new attachment
Cosmo gives Michelle a reason to care for someone—or something—after family trauma has made her wary of attachment. Their bond develops during the journey, and Cosmo’s persistence slowly breaks through Michelle’s emotional defenses.
This relationship is why Cosmo matters to the ending. The robot’s presence represents not a replacement for Christopher, but the possibility of continuing to live, care and connect after loss.
Michelle and Keats: reluctant allies
Michelle and Keats begin as uneasy partners. Neither has much reason to trust the other, and their goals do not initially align. Necessity keeps them together, while danger gradually turns their arrangement into mutual reliance.
Rank #4
- SIZE: 24x36 poster frame is designed in a modern style and is suitable for hanging on any wall in home, office, photo studio, art gallery, school exhibition hall. You can use them for Video Game, Movie posters to redecorate anywhere.
- Upgraded Material: These light-weight picture frames use upgraded plastic material, Scratch-proof and durable. And a thicker plastic cover with a protective film (prevent scratches) keeps posters better preserved. Before use, please tear off the bothside film.
- EASY to INSTALL: The frame strips can be easily assembled by sliding together, which is especially for large size poster frames to achieve the lightness. The frame back comes with 2 pcs sturdy hangers that can be hung vertically or horizontally from the wall.
- PRECIOUS GIFT: The frame is suitable for any style of photo, such as art prints, children's artwork, Video Game, Movie posters. It is the perfect gift for your family or friends on anniversaries, weddings, birthdays, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas.
- SECURE PACKAGE: Each frame is individually plastic sealed with corner guard and finally overall sealed to ensure safe shipping and avoid damaged. Strong collisions may cause the frame corners to separate, just simply slide the strips to get a intact poster frame again.
Their road-trip dynamic balances distrust, humor and growing respect. Keats becomes a protector without taking Michelle’s agency away, while Michelle’s determination gives Keats a reason to look beyond his instinct for self-preservation.
Keats and Herman: enemies who became friends
Keats and Herman’s relationship demonstrates that the human-robot conflict was never enough to explain every individual relationship. They once stood on opposite sides of the war, yet they eventually found friendship. Herman’s sarcasm and Keats’s impatience create the film’s comic odd couple, but their shared history gives the jokes emotional weight.
Do these 3 things before closing this tab:
1Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches2Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems3Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteBradbury and Mr. Peanut: from enforcement to recognition
Bradbury and Mr. Peanut begin from opposing positions: one enforces the boundary that imprisons robots, while the other leads a community living under that threat. Their eventual relationship shows ideological change taking place through personal encounter rather than abstract argument.
Bradbury’s change begins when he recognizes that moral emptiness and cruelty are not unique to machines. His peace with Mr. Peanut becomes one of the film’s clearest arguments for coexistence.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.The Electric State ending explained: what happens to the characters?
Spoilers follow.
What happens to Christopher?
Christopher’s fate is inseparable from the technology and institutions driving the human-robot conflict. The film reveals that the systems behind the postwar order have used technology and human life in ways that make Michelle’s rescue mission impossible in the form she imagined.
Michelle ultimately shuts down Christopher’s life functions. The decision is one of the story’s most painful moments because it requires her to stop trying to retrieve the brother she remembers and accept what has happened to him. The act is not a rejection of Christopher; it is the moment when her grief becomes an acknowledgment of reality.
What happens to Cosmo?
After Christopher’s death, Cosmo reactivates in a landfill. The scene suggests that some part of Christopher’s consciousness or electrical presence may remain within Cosmo, although the film leaves the exact nature of that connection open to interpretation.
Cosmo’s reactivation gives the ending a hopeful but deliberately uncertain note. It does not undo Christopher’s death, but it suggests that identity, memory and connection may persist in forms that do not fit the film’s strict human-versus-machine categories.
What happens to Herman?
Herman survives the final battle because his large body contains a smaller version of himself. The gag is consistent with Herman’s established ability to come in multiple sizes, but it also gives Keats and the audience a reason to hope that their friendship continues after the conflict.
What happens to Colonel Bradbury and Mr. Peanut?
Bradbury changes after discovering that humans are capable of the same cruelty and moral emptiness that he has used to condemn robots. He is able to make peace with Mr. Peanut, transforming their relationship from hunter and target into an example of recognition and coexistence.
Free tools Windows power users keep installed
One-click scans. No signup required.
Best Value
- MODERN AND FUNCTIONAL: Create a contemporary display for all your most esteemed art prints, photos, posters, puzzles, and more with the MCS Trendsetter Frame featuring a sleek black finish
- DIMENSIONS: Wall picture frame measures 25 x 37 inches and holds one 24 x 36 inch poster, puzzle, or picture
- QUALITY CONSTRUCTION: Our poster frames feature a back-loading design with a clear styrene front to protect artwork and puzzles from damage; Lightweight cardboard backing and a durable plastic profile makes adding or swapping posters a breeze
- EASY TO USE: Trendsetter poster and puzzle frames feature attached hinged hangers for simple vertical or horizontal wall hanging
- VERSATILE DECOR: With a passion for design, trend, and functionality, MCS delivers best-in-class products, like our modern picture frames, that help make your house a home; Showcase posters, photographs, or puzzles with the MCS Trendsetter Frame collection; With multiple sizes and finishes to choose from, you can outfit your living room, bedroom, or home office with sleek, contemporary wall decor
What happens after Christopher’s death?
Sentre-powered drones shut down around the world, and information about the experimentation on a human child becomes public. Michelle responds by sending a global video message. Her argument is not that every form of technology is inherently evil; it is a warning against technological abuse, institutional control and the dehumanization of both people and machines.
That distinction is important to the film’s resolution. The conflict is not simply “machines versus people.” Technology can help, entertain and connect, but systems built around addiction, disconnection, exploitation and absolute control can turn useful tools into instruments of harm.
Who performs the robots?
The robot characters are made through a combination of voice acting, visual effects and on-set motion capture. The person who supplies a robot’s voice is not always the same performer who supplies its physical movement.
| Robot | Voice performer | Motion-capture performer, where credited |
|---|---|---|
| Cosmo | Alan Tudyk | Devyn Dalton and Phoenix Notary |
| Herman | Anthony Mackie | Martin Klebba |
| Penny Pal | Jenny Slate | Gabrielle Maiden |
| Perplexo | Hank Azaria | Christopher Silvestri |
These separate credits matter because the final performances depend on several layers: a voice gives the character its personality and dialogue, a motion-capture performer supplies physical behavior on set, and visual-effects artists turn those elements into the finished robot.
Where does The Electric State take place?
The film takes place in an alternate 1990s after a failed robot uprising. Robots have been defeated and pushed into a walled-off Exclusion Zone, creating a setting that combines a familiar American road landscape with speculative technology.
Michelle’s route takes her through the American West, where abandoned infrastructure, consumer culture, battle remains and animatronic or mascot-like machines coexist. Blue Sky Acres Mall is especially important because it has become a settlement for robots. The location turns the remains of a consumer environment into a community shaped by the products and identities that once belonged to it.
Is The Electric State based on a book?
Yes. The film is adapted from Simon Stålenhag’s illustrated science-fiction novel The Electric State, published by Skybound Books in 2018. The publisher’s edition is a 144-page illustrated source work and the inspiration for the Netflix film.
However, the book is not a scene-by-scene film companion or a prose version of the screenplay. It shares the broad premise of a teenage girl and a robot traveling through a strange American landscape, but the film expands and rearranges that material into a larger ensemble adventure with named human and robot factions.
Recommended Free Tools
If you want to compare the adaptation with its source, look for Simon Stålenhag’s The Electric State graphic novel. The original illustrated book is darker and more impressionistic, while the film develops the premise into a broader road movie with a larger cast and more explicit character relationships.
At a glance: The Electric State cast
- Millie Bobby Brown: Michelle
- Chris Pratt: Keats
- Woody Norman: Christopher
- Giancarlo Esposito: Colonel Bradbury
- Ke Huy Quan: Dr. Amherst
- Stanley Tucci: Ethan Skate
- Jason Alexander: Ted
- Alan Tudyk: Cosmo’s voice
- Anthony Mackie: Herman’s voice
- Woody Harrelson: Mr. Peanut’s voice
- Brian Cox: Pop Fly’s voice
- Jenny Slate: Penny Pal’s voice
- Hank Azaria: Perplexo’s voice
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is in the cast of The Electric State?
The main cast includes Millie Bobby Brown as Michelle, Chris Pratt as Keats, Woody Norman as Christopher, Giancarlo Esposito as Colonel Bradbury, Ke Huy Quan as Dr. Amherst, Stanley Tucci as Ethan Skate and Jason Alexander as Ted. The robot cast includes Alan Tudyk as Cosmo, Anthony Mackie as Herman, Woody Harrelson as Mr. Peanut, Brian Cox as Pop Fly, Jenny Slate as Penny Pal and Hank Azaria as Perplexo.
Is The Electric State based on a book?
Yes. It is adapted from Simon Stålenhag’s 2018 illustrated science-fiction novel The Electric State, published by Skybound Books. The film expands and rearranges the source material, so the book is not an identical version of the screenplay.
What happens to Christopher, Cosmo and Herman?
Michelle shuts down Christopher’s life functions after learning the truth about what has happened to him. Cosmo later reactivates in a landfill, suggesting that some part of Christopher’s consciousness or electrical presence may remain. Herman survives because his large body contains a smaller version of himself.
The Bottom Line
The Electric State uses its cast of humans, robots and hybrid performances to tell a story about grief, technological abuse and the possibility of coexistence. Michelle’s search for Christopher drives the plot, but her relationships with Cosmo and Keats—and Bradbury’s changing relationship with Mr. Peanut—give the film its emotional resolution.
Quick Recap
Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.
