Fan-Favorite Actor Alan Tudyk is Speaking Out On That Iconic Sci-Fi Role That No One Knows He Played 

Alan Tudyk has built a career on a foundation of memorable characters, from his role as the pilot Wash in the cult sci-fi series Firefly to his voice work as King Candy in Wreck-It Ralph. To modern audiences, he is the indispensable droid K-2SO in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and the Disney+ prequel Andor, and he has recently joined James Gunn’s DC Universe by voicing Dr. Phosphorus in the animated series Creature Commandos. Despite this extensive resume, one of his most significant science fiction roles remains largely unknown to the general public. In a new interview with Just Jared, Tudyk has revealed the reason many fans are not aware that he played the role of the robot Sonny in the 2004 blockbuster I, Robot.

“A lot of people did not know I did Sonny the Robot in I, Robot, and there is a reason,” Tudyk stated. “They were doing test audiences for the movie, and they score the characters in this kind of test screening. I got word back: ‘Alan, you are testing higher than Will Smith.’ And then I was gone. I was done. There was no publicity, and my name was not mentioned.”

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The studio’s decision stemmed from a desire to protect the image of its top-billed star. According to Tudyk’s account, his performance as Sonny was so effective that it risked overshadowing Will Smith, prompting 20th Century Studios to remove him from the film’s press tour and marketing materials. This move ensured the public focus remained on Smith, but it came at the cost of properly crediting the actor who had provided the emotional foundation for the film’s most complex character. “I was like, ‘Wait, nobody is going to know I’m in it!’” Tudyk recalled. “I put a lot into [that performance]. I had to move like a robot. At the time, I was very upset.”

How Tudyk’s Sonny Became a Motion-Capture Benchmark

Released in 2004, I, Robot was a significant commercial success, grossing over $347 million worldwide and securing an Academy Award nomination for its groundbreaking visual effects. The film’s narrative, loosely adapted from Isaac Asimov’s seminal short stories, follows Detective Del Spooner (Will Smith) as he investigates a murder apparently committed by an NS-5 robot named Sonny. Tudyk’s role was instrumental in bringing Sonny to life through a pioneering application of on-set performance capture. This technique required Tudyk to be physically present in every scene with Smith, wearing a full motion-capture suit to provide a direct performance for the other actors to react to.

While Andy Serkis’s work as Gollum in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers had set a new benchmark for the technology just two years prior, that process often involved capturing his performance separately. On I, Robot, the filmmakers and the visual effects teams at Digital Domain and Weta Digital quickly discovered that the takes featuring Tudyk directly on set were qualitatively better. Smith’s performance was more focused and intense when he had a fellow actor to play against, resulting in more authentic interactions. This discovery led to a fundamental shift in the production’s methodology. Ultimately, around 80% of the final shots in the film utilized the takes where Tudyk was physically present, a decision that required the VFX artists to meticulously paint him out of more than 200 individual shots.

This commitment to capturing an integrated on-set performance validated the actor’s essential role in the creation of a digital character. It proved that the nuance and humanity of a performance could be transferred through the technology. The data from the audience test screenings, which ranked Sonny higher than the film’s star, serves as the ultimate confirmation of this success. Tudyk’s work on I, Robot became a new benchmark, building on the foundation Serkis had created and helping to solidify the techniques that would later be used to create the iconic digital characters in major franchises like Avatar and Planet of the Apes.

I, Robot is currently available for streaming on Hulu.

What is your favorite Alan Tudyk performance? Let us know in the comments!