“It’s important to show that there’s a vulnerability to the male ego” – an interview with Red Dead Redemption 2’s Roger Clark

This put up comprises spoilers for Red Dead Redemption 2.

It was similar to every other audition for Roger Clark, although two issues stood out. Firstly, there have been no script sides out there upfront so he couldn’t practise his traces. Secondly, he was requested to put on cowboy boots. Actual cowboy boots.

Clark knew he was auditioning for a video game, he was additionally accustomed to Rockstar and had performed by way of the earlier Red Dead Redemption. With these cowboy boots clicking on the ground as he made his approach into the audition room, he was fairly positive what he was getting himself into.

“It was good,” Clark remembers. “It’s hard to tell how auditions go. I can tell when they go horribly wrong, but that’s about it. I could tell this one didn’t go horribly wrong. The sides weren’t extremely relevant to what Red Dead became – as I recall, it was some guy walking into a bar or a diner. He had a relationship with a guy behind the counter and he was just shooting the shit for a while. Eventually, he says ‘Someone put a price on your head, so I gotta kill you now’.”

“I think we might get a lot less toxic masculinity if we address that men are fragile, too – or at least as capable of being vulnerable and scared.”

The casting workforce liked his audition. It wasn’t lengthy earlier than Clark was stood within the movement seize quantity – a giant stage with dimensionally-accurate, jury-rigged contraptions standing in for saloon doorways and buildings, whereas horses had been large oil drums kitted with saddles so actors might hoist themselves up – sporting his mocap go well with. At this level, he solely knew he was going to be a playable character.

“It’s important to show that there’s a vulnerability to the male ego” – an interview with Red Dead Redemption 2’s Roger Clark

“From that, I surmised I was going to be the protagonist or a major character,” Clark tells me. “Obviously GTA 5 had three playable characters so I had no reason to assume I was the only one, or the only one you could play at any one time. I didn’t know a lot about it, to be honest.”

The cowboy boots had already given him a good suggestion he was engaged on Red Dead Redemption 2, however the reference materials he was instructed to review by director Rod Edge all however confirmed it. “We were building up a good picture of what Arthur Morgan should be,” Clark explains. “I remember him telling me to check out The Proposition.”

The Proposition is a dusty, sparse western set within the Australian outback, the place lengthy stretches of quiet reflection are punctuated by violence. Themes of sophistication segregation, clashing worldviews, and familial bonds additionally tie the 2 initiatives collectively.

Clark consumed as a lot reference materials as he might, to the purpose the place he started to recognise particular photographs created as an homage to a few of the hottest movies within the style. You might have caught Rockstar’s model of the long-lasting scene from The Assassination of Jesse James your self, the place a digicam pans together with a prepare, lighting up bandits within the woodline earlier than slicing to a silhouetted determine blocking the tracks. But exterior of the prescribed reference materials, Clark additionally had his personal private thought of what he needed Arthur Morgan to characterize.

“I would say Toshirō Mifune – Kurosawa’s leading man most of the time – was a huge influence for me,” Clark enthuses. “I can’t take my eyes off him. He offers something I could really take a lot of influence from for a western. He had that crazy sense of humour, then at other times he’s very stoic. He has a bit of complexity that I was hoping to bring across with Arthur Morgan. This is a character players spend hours and hours with, so I wanted to make him as complex as I could.”

One high quality Clark was wanting to get throughout in his character was a way of vulnerability. Red Dead Redemption 2 begins in the identical approach most Rockstar games do – when you’re previous the opening mission, icons on the map mark individuals of curiosity. You head to the icons, settle for a mission, a cutscene performs, and also you do a activity for the NPC. You’re an obedient soldier, the muscle of the gang, at all times prepared to place your self in hurt’s approach. As the game progresses, as Arthur’s viewpoints change, he features extra company. He nonetheless heads to icons, however they aren’t at all times what you count on, and Arthur begins to do the issues he needs to do, fairly than merely complying with father determine and gang chief Dutch Van der Linde’s whims.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever do anything like it again. It wasn’t just five years long, it was five years of secrecy as well.”

“When I did one of Arthur’s last scenes for the first time, I got the sides around a week in advance, and I started to get a bit anxious,” Clark remembers. “I was nervous to say goodbye to a character that I’d been working on for so long. There were definitely a lot of emotional times. I wanted to bring across a certain vulnerability to Arthur, which is something I don’t think westerns have addressed as much as they possibly could have. When we think of the genre, we think of the strong, masculine protagonist, and I think it’s important to show that there’s a definite vulnerability to the male ego, to male characters, and I think we might get a lot less toxic masculinity if we address that men are fragile, too – or at least as capable of being vulnerable and scared.”

It’s no coincidence that one of many game’s strongest moments displays that sentiment, with Arthur saying two phrases you don’t typically hear out of a video game protagonist’s mouth: “I’m afraid”. It’s at this finish level, when he’s dying, that he begins to take possession for his previous decisions – his option to assume solely of the great of the gang on the expense of everybody else, himself included. But the place does his starvation for redemption come from – is it a real effort to proper wrongs, or is he eager about the tales individuals will inform about him after he’s gone?

“People tend to get more religious as they age. I don’t know why,” Clark says. “I believe as one begins to see their impending mortality and the tip coming nearer and nearer… I believe if Arthur was attempting to avoid wasting his personal ass within the afterlife, he might have chosen some simpler individuals to assist.

“Also, the way in which he goes and does what he can to assist John Marston. I believe one of many causes John and Arthur have this sort of sibling animosity for one another originally of the game is as a result of Arthur resents John. John has what Arthur needs he might have – a spouse and baby – however finally, when Arthur realises the gang goes downhill quick and John and his household may not have the ability to get out, he tries to do what he needs he might have executed for himself. Whether that’s egocentric or not? I don’t assume it’s, however there’s positively an argument for the opposite approach.”

While Red Dead Redemption 2’s story was primarily concerning the breakdown of a dysfunctional household, issues couldn’t have been extra totally different on-set. Over 1,000 actors labored on the game, however the core crew – the Van der Linde gang – turned an inseparable unit, bonding over this behemoth they’d dedicated 5 years of their lives to seeing by way of.

“Oh my gosh, it was unprecedented,” Clark admits. “I don’t know if I’ll ever do something prefer it once more. It wasn’t simply 5 years lengthy, it was 5 years of secrecy as nicely. Necessary secrecy. The relationships we constructed up with one another over these 5 years, I don’t know what else to check it to. Not solely had been we continually working collectively, however we had no person else to speak to concerning the work, besides one another. It actually afforded us the time to get to know the ins and outs of one another’s motivations and the storyline, to provide you with believable backstories that all of us had a mutual understanding of, to essentially present the cohesiveness of the gang and the time they’ve been collectively. It was simpler to recreate that after we had been type of doing it ourselves as nicely.

“Benjamin Byron Davis (Dutch Van der Linde) and Steve Palmer (Bill Williamson) would fly over from LA, many of the solid had been New York-bound, however Rob Wiethoff (John Marston) would come over from Louisiana. Whenever they might fly over, it will be like seeing an outdated good friend, like a gang reunion.”

Most of the core workforce remained the identical all through manufacturing, although the actor who performed Charles Smith was recast as a result of the preliminary selection wasn’t the fitting match. Other actors moved away, some took on different commitments, and a few of the solid sadly died. It was an extended, gruelling course of – significantly for the casting division – with many transferring elements.

“I’m presuming now, but I think the amazing writers – Dan Houser, Michael Unsworth, and Rupert Humphries – when we started the project, had a very loose, kind of skeletal structure,” Clark says. “But they didn’t really commit until they saw what the actors were bringing, then really fleshing it out. Things really changed as the years went by, when we started to see what worked well and what didn’t. A lot of little nuances and details were changed for a variety of reasons. Every time something changed, it was because they had a commitment to quality and they wanted to put forward the best version of the story they thought they could.”

While the writers did what they might to make the story resonate, the actors did their bit within the efficiency seize quantity. There’s a standard false impression round performing in games, the place individuals lump all the things into one class: voice performing. You don’t see many voice actors pulling themselves onto a saddled-up oil drum, nonetheless – efficiency seize is a extra bodily self-discipline and is far nearer to theatre, monitoring facial options and bodily presence like all full physique efficiency would. This comes with its personal set of challenges, but it surely additionally permits the solid to ship a extra pure efficiency, reacting to one another and enjoying off that belief constructed up of their bonding periods off set.

It is likely to be over now, but it surely appears like Clark and the gang received’t crumble like Dutch’s crew – the solid’s actual life bond has develop into as robust as Arthur’s along with his horse, which Rockstar paid service to in the event you managed to maintain a single equine companion round lengthy sufficient in the course of the story. It was a scene that caught out to many gamers as some of the emotional within the game, and it was additionally one which resonated with Clark as an actor.

“When John’s telling me to hurry up and we’re getting shot at, the animators helped us as they always did, and Rod Edge is telling us there’s guns firing at you,” Clark remembers. “It was a makeshift horse’s head, a bit like The Godfather. They made it clear to me that this only happened if the player still has a high level of bonding with their horse and would only play in those instances. I knew this was going to be something important and I tried to bring that across in the performance.”

Now we as gamers say goodbye to Clark, one of many best actors to don a movement seize go well with and trip a faux horse. Red Dead Redemption received’t be the identical with out you, and we are able to solely pray Rockstar calls you again in for one final job. Hopefully Clark hasn’t hung up these cowboy boots simply but.


 
Source

Read also