One of the stars of Red Dead Redemption 2 is its main cast. The Dutch van der Linde Gang features a diverse and memorable set of characters that are all excellently realized, written, and brought to life with top-class performances.
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That said, speaking to Hollywood Reporter, some of the actors behind the more prominent gang members have revealed their personal most memorable moment of development.
The voice behind Arthur Morgan, Roger Clark, reflected on his experience with the game’s animators and technicians.
“One of the things that encourages me so much about the reviews that I’ve seen is just how everyone has praised the performances and authenticity, and I will say I wouldn’t have been able to do it without the animators and the technicians.”
Clark continued revealing that the animators and technicians helped him in his performance by allowing him to see himself in the environment via real time pre-vis.
Meanwhile, for Alex McKenna, the actress that brought to life fan-favorite Sadie Adler, it was trying to figure out just what type of character Sadie was, a process that took her over two years to figure out.
“For me, it would be getting to set early in the morning and not necessarily having a full script, so we’d just have the pages we were doing,” said Mckenna. “It would take me about two years to really understand who Sadie was, let alone where she fit in the story. So, we’d be sitting around getting ready to get in our suits, and I remember asking Roger, “Hey, we all signed the same NDA, right? Are we allowed to look at each other’s sides?” And we went around very, very quickly and read everybody’s sides to get some more information. I remember feeling very naughty, like we were all cheating in school, but we really just wanted to use that to make it the best performance possible.”
For Byron Davis, also known as Dutch van der Linde, it was the moments that reminded him that he was part of something much, much larger than himself.
“We had an ensemble as actors but really the entire organization made you feel like you were a part of something larger than yourself,” said Davis.
Davis continued noting that when making the first game not everyone on the development team knew exactly who Dutch was. But come the prequel, everybody knew exactly who Dutch was. The voice actor continued:
“Rob and I were catching up the first day talking about the movie Gravity, which at that point had just come out, and I noticed one of the Rockstar employees was staring at us and I said, “What’s going on?” He just goes, “I can’t believe I’m watching Dutch and John talking about Gravity.” (Laughs.) To just be in an environment where I knew everyone cared so much, it was just remarkable.”
Meanwhile, Rob Wiethoff, the man responsible for John Marston, the protagonist of the first game, shared a moment from his first day on the job, which is also the same day he realized the game was going to be special.
“My first day, I went back to a familiar place and I knew I was going to see a lot of familiar faces. I rode in the car to the location with Ben Davis, whom I’ve known for almost 20 years because we worked together before any Red Dead Redemption, and we got there and I met Roger. I got to see Roger work, and I don’t know if I had just forgotten what all this is and what you needed to do, but I remember going home that night and calling my wife and going, “They got a real actor this time! This is going to be so good!”
Lastly, Noshir Dalal, who played Charles Smith, notes that while he has had experience in the past doing motion capture work, it doesn’t compare to the scale of how Rockstar Games does it with tts devotion to narrative and telling a human story.
“I had never been at a place where the human story and narrative were driven so far in front of any other requirement or need. As a result, the bar here was super high and everyone is working their butts off. No one had the luxury of phoning it in. That was a real eye-opening experience for me.”
Dalal further noted that he really cared about Charles Smith as a character, and knew that from a sociopolitical and cultural point of view Charles had to be told and conveyed “in the right way.” And so doing the responsibility justice, and doing the proper research in order to do this, “was a really interesting challenge.”
Red Dead Redemption 2 is available for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. For more news, information, and media on the game, click here.
