In a new interview with Deadline, Bugonia Screenwriter Will Tracy focused on the character of Teddy, played by Jesse Plemons with just the right nervous, damaged but determined energy. Some of his most useful research came from simply visiting websites that Teddy himself could bookmark and return to.
“I spent a little time [Reddit]And probably not even for research for the film. [Because of] My own strange search for knowledge and answers or something, or some confusion, or maybe a need to understand what people are saying, to feel connected to something… As an observer, I find myself immersed in those areas anyway,” Tracy said. ”So I did a lot of the Reddit and YouTube comments, and even in 4Chan, which was pretty hot at the time, but to a certain extent, I didn’t want to make Teddy as a mix of whatever disorder the two magazines were. I wanted to create a guy who felt like he had his own thing. Even ‘incel’, who in some ways finds it culturally legitimate to call him that, well, he’s not literally, he is. Voluntarily Celibacy. In that sense he is quite objective.”
He continued. “I think the other thing that’s probably been on my mind, and it’s certainly been reinforced since some of the recent events, is but whenever something like this happens, whether it’s a domestic terrorist or some kind of shooter, or a murderer, or whatever, now, of course, there’s an immediate cultural reaction to blame the other side, like, ‘It’s one of them,’ or, ‘This is clearly a right-wing crazy thing,’ or, ‘That. The leftist is a fool. And then, of course, we’ll see what happens. Inevitably, the cliché, this always seems to happen, is that the information comes in and it’s, ‘They’re an anti-fascist registered Republican gun-lover who identifies as non-binary.’ It doesn’t fit any clear category.”
“And so it was in my mind, too, that this is this guy who was probably cycling through a lot of different things and couldn’t find a story that he liked, and so he had to create his own story.”
Of course, in Teddy’s case, his absurd ideas are actually correct. Emma Stone’s character, Michelle, is eventually revealed to be an alien. Trying to decide whether Teddy is dangerously unstable – or whether Michelle is actually plotting the planet’s destruction – is a big part of the film’s entertainment. The fact that Teddy feels very anxiously Pure Only adds to that mystery, especially when you find out the truth in the end.
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