Abhiroop Das
Helmed by Casper Christensen and Anthony Hines, ‘Robots’ is a science fiction romantic comedy set in a not-so-distant future where humans rely on robots to handle everyday, laborious tasks. Charles, a womanizing businessman, uses a highly illegal, look-alike robot named C2 to go on dates with women and follow the romantic rulebook, all so that he can impress them. What he doesn’t know, however, is that his newest date, Elaine, uses a similar double, named E2, to get her dates to buy her expensive things.
Charles and Elaine’s journey then takes an unexpected turn when they each discover that their robots have developed a mind of their own, fallen in love, and are now posing as them. Based on the short story ‘The Robot Who Looked Like Me’ by Robert Sheckley, the film explores identity, relationships, and the boundary between humans and robots.
Shailene Woodley and Jack Whitehall Play Both Human and Robot With Help From Body Doubles
The life-like C2 and E2 in ‘Robots’ are the result of a blend of body doubles, practical effects, and VFX, all of which go into bringing the illusion to life. For most scenes in the film, actors Shailene Woodley and Jack Whitehall perform their dual-character scenes alongside professional artists who serve as physical markers so the lead actors have a real person to interact with and match their rhythm with. In the credits, actor Jennifer Ingrum and Nic Wolfe are listed as the doubles for Elaine/E2/E3 and Charles/C2, respectively, and their roles are instrumental to making the characters feel realistic in any given setting.
In a conversation with JoBlo, Shailene described mirroring her performance with Jennifer as the most challenging and yet rewarding parts of the filming process. She recalled sitting down with Jennifer before scenes and conceptualizing how she would move when filming the other half of the sequence later on, but that was not always easy to pull off. “The beautiful thing about acting is what happens in the moment, and there wasn’t as much of a license given, because we had to preprogram what our movements would be,” she explained.
Filming Practically Allowed the Actors Greater Flexibility
Another hurdle that both actors, Shailene Woodley and Jack Whitehall, faced was their different perspectives on E2 and C2, respectively. To that end, they coordinated in advance to ensure that their robot characters didn’t act too differently from one another or their respective human counterparts. Instead of making the characters act mechanically, both actors chose a more subdued take, blurring the lines between human and robot, while still making the two distinct enough to be easily recognizable. Far from letting these challenges hold back their performance, the actors adapted to this experimental style of filming, and the result is the seamless mix we see on screen.
While the dual-role sequences may have been predetermined for the most part, that doesn’t mean that there was no room for spontaneity. For Whitefall, who is particularly famous for his stand-up comedy, the role of Charles and C2 involves a fair amount of improvisation, especially for the comic scenes. From there, the crew likely opted for a split-screen style of filming, with the lead actors playing their dual roles separately, with the VFX and compositing team stitching the two layers together to make it look like a singular scene. The fact that there are two body doubles involved likely made filming a lot harder, but the decision to use practical effects instead of doing a complete digital duplication speaks to the filmmakers’ attention to detail.
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