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Wheatley's Voice Actor Talks About The 'Exhausting' Role
A lot of Portal 2's laughs came from Stephen Merchant's voiceover work for the character of Wheatley. MTV Multiplayer caught up with the Extras actor and talked about how he tackled the role. If you think voice acting is as simple as strolling into a booth, spitting out a few funny lines, and collecting a check on your way out, prepare to be surprised.
"When I started to mention to people who know about such things, 'I'm doing this game, Portal 2,' they got very excited, suddenly. More excited than anything I've ever done before, weirdly. Gamers are incredibly enthusiastic about the stuff they love. Suddenly I realized, this is quite a big deal and what I thought was an easy gig, I suddenly felt this responsibility to try and do a good job.
"I have to say, I found the entire thing really exhausting. More than anything I've ever done before because I'm in this little recording booth, shouting down these imaginary corridors, imaginary gantries, pretending to fall off things and really trying to move around and live it as best I could. I know it sounds really pretentious, but really try to move around like this robot so my voice would feel like it was animated. I was really working hard to try and put myself in that environment, I guess, which is not something I normally do as a performer."
Merchant isn't ruling out a return to the character either, regardless off the...predicament he finds himself in at the game's conclusion. "I'm a robot, I don't need to die. They could bring me back anyway if they wanted. Make it a prequel!"
Check out the entire interview here. It's a great read.
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