Alan Tudyk said on the “Toon’d In with Jim Cummings” podcast that he was removed from the marketing of 2004’s “I, Robot” after test screenings showed audiences liked him more than star Will Smith.
Tudyk played the robot Sonny using motion capture and voice acting. He said cutting him from the publicity meant many people still don’t know he was in the movie.
A lot of people did not know I did Sonny the Robot in ‘I, Robot,’ and there is a reason. 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. I was so shocked. I was like, ‘Wait, nobody is going to know I’m in it!’ I put a lot into [that performance]. I had to move like a robot. At the time, I was very upset.
Tudyk said
Variety has asked Smith’s team for a comment.
“I, Robot,” directed by Alex Proyas, features Will Smith as a Chicago detective in 2035 investigating what he believes is the murder of a robotics company founder. The company’s advanced robots work in public service, but Smith’s character suspects one of them, Sonny — played by Tudyk — is the killer. The movie also stars Bridget Moynahan, Bruce Greenwood, James Cromwell, and Chi McBride.
When Tudyk played Sonny, motion capture performances were still fairly new in Hollywood, aside from characters like Jar Jar Binks in “Star Wars” and Gollum in “The Lord of the Rings.” Years later, Tudyk used the technology again as droid K-2SO in “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” a role he returned to in the Disney+ prequel series “Andor.”
You can watch Tudyk’s full interview on the “Toon’d In with Jim Cummings” podcast in the video below.
Source: Variety