00:05As someone who's been a gamer since they were three years old, the first thing I ever wanted to do
00:09was work in game development.
00:12And somewhere along the way it morphed and it changed and I wasn't going to go into games, I was
00:17going to become an actor.
00:19But I worked at a video game shop, I was always adjacent to it.
00:23And then something like Saros comes along and I never thought it would get better than just doing a voice
00:29as a character.
00:29And then to be scanned, to do mocap, to do PCAT.
00:35I never dared to think that I could be the lead of a game, I never thought that people could
00:41play as me in this way.
00:44And it still doesn't feel very real.
00:46Take one, Mark.
00:50It's odd, but it's also the thing I've dreamed about since I was a kid, it's nuts.
01:06When I saw the actors, our ensemble cast, just walk in, all suited up, it was like, man, this is
01:12really happening, this is really cool.
01:14And I went to our creative director, Greg, just kind of like, this is real, man, like, this is exciting.
01:20I think the energy that we had on that stage with all the actors, all the crew, you know, you
01:27could see Greg's eyes light up in the moment, like, we're doing this.
01:31It's always special to have a script and then to watch an actor actually bring it to life, and actually
01:36bring it to life in a way you can't even imagine, and bring so much honesty and sort of truth
01:41and emotion.
01:43It was really powerful, because obviously when you write something that feels emotional, you're not sure how far it goes,
01:48but great actors just lift the material.
01:52Lies!
01:53This is what it does. It gets in your head, and it twists, and it turns.
02:00They're here.
02:02They need us.
02:04I can't let up.
02:06First day on the PCAP stage.
02:08Yeah.
02:08Paint me a picture.
02:09Hated it.
02:10First day on PCAP is a very strange feeling.
02:13I think you spend most of your time worrying about how you look in this lycra wetsuit thing, wishing that
02:20maybe you had gone gym.
02:21That takes about an hour or two before you stop feeling silly.
02:25It's like a really strange thing, because it starts quite tech heavy. It starts quite mechanically, right?
02:30Calibrations, and you know, you have people messing around with you, and I have to calibrate my fingers, and we
02:34did all of that.
02:35And then once that hour and a half of tech is done, it just felt like an empty stage with
02:42actors and a director and a script.
02:44Because this is an actual truthful moment to how to react to that process. It's not, oh, I've been...
02:49I think most actors anyway are very comfortable with having to do a lot with very little.
02:54You know, from day one in a rehearsal space, for instance, nine times out of ten, you are working without
03:01props.
03:02You are working without stage furniture, any of that type of stuff.
03:05All of it's, you know, you don't have your costume.
03:07You go right back to that very recognisable world that you've been in for years, which is just, oh, you
03:13and me are doing a scene?
03:14Great. Okay, cool. And this all just has gone.
03:18That's a table? Okay.
03:19This is an alleyway?
03:21All right, cool.
03:25So it was always about trying to get the actors in the right place from the beginning.
03:29We kind of actually started with a lot more of the more dream elements, so that way they didn't have
03:34to know exactly who they were.
03:35They could be more dreamlike.
03:37And from there, we basically went into a lot more of the realistic naturalist sort of performances.
03:42So it was kind of an act of organising the shoot to make sure that we could allow the actors
03:47to kind of settle into who they were,
03:49but also allow them to build their characters as they went on.
03:52I have to name drop a little bit here, but I've been good friends with Troy Baker for a long
03:58time.
03:58And he's kind of been a bit of a PCAP, mo-cap mentor for me.
04:02I remember him saying it was the purest form of acting you'll ever do.
04:07And he was right.
04:08As soon as we started that, then I realised, okay, I'm not playing a camera.
04:14I can put aside all of my technique.
04:17And actually now it's just about me and you.
04:22This is for us.
04:25And come on, don't you want to live like a king?
04:30And the beauty of it is, if you and I have a scene together, whatever's happening between us,
04:35we feel like we want to be closer than we probably should be, cool.
04:40Well, allow the emotions to do that and don't worry about the blocking.
04:45If the scene takes you closer, cool, it's all right.
04:48Later on, they'll separate you.
04:49I truly believe of all the mediums I've done, like PCAP, mo-cap is the purest form of acting.
04:57The closest is just literally two kids doing make-believe in their garden or living room.
05:04That is as close as it is to the purest form of imagination.
05:09Take three, mark.
05:16You can come out.
05:26Raul Koli is a fantastic talent.
05:28He takes this very serious, but at the same time, he's a gamer as well.
05:32And so he knows what he's looking for in a video game character.
05:35You know, on set, he had so many notes even with the script.
05:38Like, hey, what if we do this?
05:40What if we do that?
05:41And that was really interesting to see him collaborate with Greg.
05:44Because it was like two kids in a sandbox playing with action figures, you know?
05:47And it was just like, no, man, like, that, let's do this, you know?
05:52And honestly, they created a fantastic spectacle.
05:55Having to do that two beats on there, like, to find the subtleties of that one being different from that
05:59one.
06:01If it's like, it gets in our heads and it twists and it turns it in.
06:04And he brings himself down.
06:07And then addresses them.
06:09So I think in the collaboration with Raul, it was about how to add these little details for players.
06:14And how to bring this level of authenticity.
06:16So whether players are watching the performance capture or hearing the voiceover,
06:20it feels authentic and it feels real.
06:24Again, when you work on TV and film, and even some games,
06:29you get in.
06:31And for that week, month, two months,
06:34that's your interpretation.
06:36That's the character.
06:37That's as much work as you're able to do on it.
06:38And you're out.
06:39That was how you felt about that character and that story at that time and then you're done.
06:44But with something like Saros, over the course of three years, my attitude about Arjun evolved.
06:49And who I thought Arjun was when I first joined versus who Arjun became a year later and a year
06:56later after that also changed.
06:59I had to catch a flight and Housemarque wouldn't have access to me for six months and they needed the
07:04trailer.
07:05And in order for me to make my flight, I had to record the other side of town in LA
07:09crazy early.
07:11And I was stuck in traffic and I was so worked up and angry at 7, 8 in the morning.
07:17We recorded the first teaser trailer.
07:20And that voice that came out was angrier, more intense than anything we had done or explored previously.
07:31I always come back stronger.
07:36Greg and I both immediately felt like we were like, wait, that's him.
07:40That's the guy.
07:42That's who we've been looking for this whole time.
07:45It's LA traffic and an early flight and having to come in and do a recording for a trailer and
07:50going, why can't we do this remotely?
07:51And being angry and not being good enough to hide it.
07:55And then that was where Arjun was really born.
07:57All right, here we go from the top.
08:00I search for you and find only death.
08:05But I always come back stronger.
08:07As much as I studied Shakespeare and started off on stage and all of those things, I wasn't an actor
08:14to do that.
08:14I was an actor because I grew up on action movies.
08:17I grew up with Harrison Ford.
08:19I wanted to be that.
08:20And you don't know where your career is going to go.
08:23You don't know how the world is going to perceive you.
08:24You don't know how you're going to look or sound later on into your career.
08:27But I always wanted to be Indiana Jones.
08:29I always wanted to be the Han Solo, the anti-hero, the Blade Runner.
08:33That's what I wanted.
08:35But that's not where my career went.
08:37And when the state of play happened, Greg didn't tell me that the key art was done.
08:42And I didn't know.
08:44So live, it showed up.
08:48And it was the over-shoulder action hero shot.
08:50And I immediately texted him and I was like, what is that?
08:53Is that the thing?
08:54Is that really the art?
08:56And he was like, yeah, that's the key art.
08:58Having the hero over-the-shoulder shot is a wish fulfillment.
09:02That's how I wanted to be perceived.
09:03It's kind of the body of work I'd want to do.
09:07And it was there.
09:09It felt like, I don't know, 30 years in the making to get that key art.
09:15Yeah, that's going to stay with me.
09:35PlayStation.
09:36Grazie a tutti.
