Jenna Ortega Urges Audiences to 'Put Down the Computers and Phones'

By Elena Vasquez

Jenna Ortega wants moviegoers to log off. The star of "Klara and the Sun" delivered that message at the film's world premiere at the London Film Festival on Thursday night.

"I think we gotta put our focus on one another and put down the computers and phones," Ortega told Variety on the red carpet. She added: "Remember to be present and to appreciate people while they're standing right in front of you."

The dystopian sci-fi film reaches theaters via Sony Pictures on Oct. 23. It adapts Nobel Prize winner Kazuo Ishiguro's bestselling 2021 novel of the same name.

Who made the film?

Taika Waititi, the director of "Thor," helms the project. Amy Adams plays Josie's mother. The cast also includes Natasha Lyonne, Steve Buscemi and Aran Murphy, the son of Cillian Murphy.

The story is set in a future where advances in genetic engineering have divided humans into strict social classes. Ortega plays Klara, an artificial android companion purchased for an ailing girl named Josie, played by Mia Tharia.

Ortega distinguished Klara from the AI audiences know today.

"AI I guess pulls all this information from the internet and Klara gets all her information from the real world," she said. "So that's a little bit different. She's kind of like a toddler in a sense."

Waititi asked for a performance that avoided robotic precision. "Taika wanted a more human approach, so he didn't want to do movement that was too robotic, maybe more sort of clumsy and unknowing," Ortega said.

Klara, in Ortega's framing, is a machine that learns by watching people rather than scraping data.

What did the red carpet look like?

Waititi, Adams, Murphy and Lyonne all walked the London Film Festival red carpet Thursday night. They were joined by Waititi's wife Rita Ora, author Ishiguro and a surprise appearance from Florence Pugh, who wore a blue floral gown with statement sleeves.

Pugh greeted Ortega and Adams before the group posed for photos alongside producer Rachel Forman. Ortega wore a yellow lace dress and hair piece.

Adams said everyone she has spoken to has taken "something different" from the film.

"That, to me, is a really successful film that communicates something different to each viewer," she said. "So I like hearing what people get out of it."

What does Ishiguro say about AI?

Ishiguro acknowledged that attitudes toward AI have shifted since his novel appeared in 2021.

"I'm aware that this film is coming out into a very different world to the one that my novel came out in five years ago, and I don't know how that will change people's expectations or how people look at things," he said.

He was direct about the film's relationship to current anxieties.

"This film doesn't address a lot of the anxieties that you and I may have right now about where we're going with the technology. I mean, I think quite rightly, it's really come center stage," Ishiguro said. "But I'll say that this isn't another film about how an AI machine seems to be nice and then becomes sinister and ends up killing all the nice people in the film. It's not that sort of story."

Waititi echoed Ortega's red-carpet message.

"I would just like people to remember what friendship is, connect with people and just be," he said. "Just be in the moment."

Is Ishiguro working with Tim Burton?

Yes. Ishiguro confirmed to Variety that he has written an original script for a new Tim Burton project. He wrote it on spec after conversations at Burton's house in North London.

"I thought this was supposed to be a big secret!" Ishiguro said. "No, Jenna didn't introduce us. Tim lives quite near where I live in North London, and I was dropping in on him in his very strange and wacky and beautiful house. I mean, it looks like a Tim Burton set. And we started to talk about a project and I wrote a script on spec."

He ruled out one genre label: "It's not a war film." He added: "Genre-wise, it's very hard to pigeonhole. It's a Tim Burton film!"

The Burton collaboration has no announced timeline. Audiences can judge Waititi's take on Ishiguro's novel when Sony Pictures releases "Klara and the Sun" in theaters on Oct. 23.