Actor Stephen Merchant, who put in a masterful turn as Portal 2’s Wheatley, found giving life to the crazy little metal ball a lot tougher than his roles in front of the camera.
“I have to say, I found the entire thing really exhausting” he told MTV. “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.”
Indeed, he wore himself out so much during recording that he began dreading the trip to the booth. “When I finished it I was like, I can never do this again, I’m so tired. Honestly, I’m not just exaggerating for the interview. I was really tired. By the third or fourth session, I was not looking forward to it. I was just like, I’m gonna be exhausted after this. So, at the time, I was thinking, Oh, I don’t fancy doing this again.”
All sounds a bit negative, but don’t worry, that was just at the time. Now that the game’s out, and people loved it, he says he is “very pleased by the response people have had to it. What I was really pleased by how people seemed to respond to it in the way they do with a movie they’ve enjoyed, or a TV show they’ve enjoyed.”
You can read the full interview at MTV below, but be warned, there be spoilers.
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