Actors donning the motion-capture dots and truly embodying the character they voice has become more common these days. Hell, we’ve even seen Jack Quaid strutting around in a huge square cage to help bring his gelatinous cube character, Phranque, to life in the upcoming God of War Laufey.
This commitment to the character seems industry-wide, as I learned this week at a hands-on preview event for Marvel’s Wolverine, Insomniac Games is just as obsessed with attention to detail as its contemporaries.
During the preview event, I had the opportunity to sit in on a roundtable discussion/interview with Insomniac senior project director Jess Reiner-Reed and Wolverine voice actor Liam McIntyre. During this insightful chat, the two told tales of development and gave insight into the creative process behind this blood-soaked action title, but a few tidbits truly stood out to me, and, of course, they were the less serious ones.
One nugget of information came up when Liam, an acclaimed Aussie actor, by the way, explained how he approached a character already so well defined in popular culture, played by another Australian actor, no less.
His commitment to creating something new, not simply recreating what came before, was inspiring, and I could feel his love for the character as he answered, but it was a factoid that capped off his answer that I zeroed in on.
After responding to a compliment made towards his likeness in the game, Jess Reiner-Reed interjected to say that, “We were talking about this yesterday, Liam; they did scan your teeth.”
“Oh yeah, they really got in there,” Liam responded. When asked if the Insomniac team altered them at all, Liam said, “Those are pretty close to mine, but much whiter. I wish I had regenerative teeth. But yeah, that’s them, except for the incisors.” Jokingly praising the studio, Liam closed by saying, “They get right inside an actor’s mouth. When you get to Insomniac, that’s the detail you get.”
So, save for some extra pointy fangs, when you play Marvel’s Wolverine and see Logan gritting his teeth, which I’m sure he’ll do a lot, know that those are some born-and-bred Aussie chompers looking back at you. It does raise the sensitive question of body-hair accuracy that no one at the event was willing to ask McIntyre, but I scoped out the man’s forearms and can say definitively, here and now, that extra fur was 100% added in post. Geez, I’m brave.
We want to hear from you. Does knowing that teeth were scanned for Marvel’s Wolverine sell you on the game? Share your thoughts with us in the comments.
