The Electric State Is the Nightmare Haters Claimed Spielberg’s Ready Player One to Be

This post contains spoilers for The Electric State. Halfway through The Electric State, our hero Michelle (Millie Bobby Brown) and her friends are captured by enemy robots and brought to their leader. The robots, who have been formed to look like vaudeville performers, lead Michelle and her friends to the stronghold: a rotted out mall, […]

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Government Cheese, is an upcoming Apple TV+ series that follows Hampton Chambers (David Oyelowo) after he is released from prison and reunites with his family in 1960s California. He invents a shelf-sharpening power drill called the “Bit Magician” as a way to make a legitimate living and leave his burgling days behind him. But despite doing his best to make a fresh start for himself, and developing a unique relationship with faith while in prison, his past tries to drag him back in.

Chambers’ divine mission is one of the things that drew David Oyelowo into the project from the start. The actor, who also serves as executive producer on the project, has a “personal, specific, and vocal relationship with God,” as he explained in Den of Geek’s SXSW studio. Referring to how he felt called upon by God to play Martin Luther King Jr. in the movie Selma, he says that he still has an “ongoing dialogue” with the Almighty, which made it easy to relate to a character that feels similarly called upon, albeit in a slightly more surreal way.

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Being part of a show that depicts a relationship with a creator, but with a character who is “incredibly flawed” yet also “incredibly relatable” greatly appealed to the actor.

“I think all of us, regardless of our religious practice, can understand and relate to the idea of wanting to be better, but constantly failing at doing that,” Oyelowo says. Chambers wants to be a better man for his wife and kids and wants to leave his criminal past behind him, but he finds that to be a lot easier said than done when the Prevost brothers come to collect money he supposedly owes them.

Taking the righteous path is not always easy, but Oyelowo believes that the show depicts Chambers’ journey in a fun, relatable, and surreal way. He appreciates that he got to play the characters’ spirituality in a “front-footed” fashion and that the show “leaned into” the visual aspects by depicting biblical parables, stories, and other religious iconography that give us insight into Chambers’ inner dialogue. No matter your faith journey, he says that the “imagination” of the series and getting to see Chambers’ internal struggles with faith depicted so “vibrantly,” is part of what makes this series so relatable.

According to Oyelowo, there’s something that we can all recognize and relate to in Chambers’ story, whether we’re devout followers, atheists, or somewhere in between. It’s always interesting to see how actors bring their personal lives and experiences into the roles they play, and it seems like Oyelowo felt a connection and kinship to Hampton Chambers from the beginning that he hopes we relate to as well.

Government Cheese premieres April 16 on Apple TV+.

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